Blood and Religion: The Conscience of Henri IV

Journal of Church and State, Summer, 2003 by Yvonne Petry

Blood and Religion: The Conscience of Henri IV. By Ronald S. Love. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001. 457 pp. $65.00.

It is hardly surprising that historians of sixteenth-century Europe use the word "blood" in their titles. However, in this work, Ronald Love refers not to the blood shed in warfare, but to the royal blood in the veins of Henri of Navarre and the conflict he felt between his princely duties and his personal conscience. Henri had been raised as a Calvinist by his powerful and persuasive mother, Jeanne d'Albret, whose influence on him, Love argues, long outlived her. Henri's numerous conversions have been the subject of much historical speculation, but Henri's own convictions have not been taken as seriously as Love does in this work. In particular, Love takes issue with those who see Henri's conversions as politically motivated and he is critical of interpretations that "overlook the potency of personal religious motivation" during the early modern period (p. 14).

As a corrective measure, Love situates his research within the larger context of the history of religious mentalite and ongoing debates regarding the limits and possibilities of early modern belief systems. Through a close reading of the primary sources and a detailed analysis of the timing of Henri's actions, Love demonstrates that Henri's religious convictions were never really compromised. He argues that while Henri was capable of "effective duplicity" (p. 76) and "confessional ambiguity" (p. 86), this was a reflection of his increasingly nuanced understanding of the need to balance his blood and his religion and his aversion to sectarianism on both sides of the religious spectrum. On the other hand, Love also dismisses what he considers to be anachronistic interpretations of Henri as a sceptic or deist and instead explores Henri's decisions in the context of Calvinist political theory and theology, especially in relation to its emphasis on the sanctity of one's conscience and on God's providence in all matters, including politics and warfare.

The kingship of France had included a sacerdotal quality since the time of Clovis and Henri's accession to the throne as a Huguenot created an enormous problem for the country. Over one-third of Love's book deals with the period between Henri's unexpected accession in 1589 and his final conversion to Catholicism four years later. Love argues that such a delay reveals the strength of Henri's Calvinist convictions, since converting would have been an "easy political solution" to the difficulties he faced in the first part of his reign (p. 220). Instead, Henri forestalled demands that he convert through a variety of means, including warfare against the Catholic League and appeals to "religious moderation, French patriotism, duty to the king, and political unity against the foreigner" (p. 176). In his analysis of Henri's life, both before and after 1589, Love skillfully interweaves an analysis of Henri's actions and decisions into the broader narrative of the religious wars and within the even broader arena of international and papal relations. In so doing, Love uncovers the nuances of early modern notions of loyalty, honor and duty, as well as sectarian politics and the affiliations involved therein. This book provides not only a careful analysis of one of the most fascinating and likeable of France's kings, but also reminds us that early modern rulers were never purely political figures, but were, as individuals, participants in the religious climate of their own day.

YVONNE PETRY LUTHER COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF REGINA REGINA, SASKATCHEWAN