Massacre of Mérindol

Massacre of the Waldensians of Mérindol in 1545 as imagined by Gustave Dore (1832-1883).

The Massacre of Mérindol took place in 1545, when Francis I of France ordered the Waldensians of the city of Mérindol to be punished for dissident religious activities.

Arrêt de Mérindol

Jean Maynier d'Oppède was ordered by Francis I to implement the massacre.

Outside the Piedmont the Waldenses joined the local Protestant churches in Bohemia, France and Germany. They had regrouped in the Luberon and followed their religions in a carefully concealed manner, but this became apparent when Lutherans started to penetrate their region.^[1] The Waldensians also became more militant, fortifying themselves as in Cabrières, or attacking an abbey.^[1]

Their increasing interaction with the Protestant churches having brought the Waldenses to the attention of the authorities, the Parlement of Provence issued the "Arrêt de Mérindol" on 18 November 1541^[2]. This was confirmed in 1545 by Francis I after a series of appeals eventually failed. In April, Maynier raised an army of Provençal troops, who were joined by forces from the Papal Comtat Venaissin against the Waldensians of Merindol and Cabrières^[3].

The massacres

Antoine Escalin des Aimars was commanding the troops that accomplished the massacre.

Mérindol plaque "In memory of the Waldensians who died for their faith".

The leaders in the 1545 massacres were Jean Maynier d'Oppède, First President of the parlement of Provence, and Antoine Escalin des Aimars, who was returning from the Italian Wars with 2,000 veterans, the Bandes de Piémont. Polin was on his way to fight against the English in the area of Boulogne after returning from an embassy to Constantinople, where he was French Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. While in Marseilles in 1545, he was requested to assist Jean Maynier d'Oppède in the repression.^[4]

These soldiers took villages of Mérindol and Cabrieres and also devastated neighbouring Waldensian villages.^[1] Deaths ranged from hundreds to thousands, depending on the estimates, with hundreds of others sent to forced labour in the French galleys, and several villages (between 22 and 28) were devastated. ^{[5] [6]} The execution of one young man, a servant, may well be the first example of execution by firing squad in Europe, at least for causes of ideology^[7].

In the aftermath, both Francis I and Pope Paul III approved of the actions taken, and Maynier was awarded Imperial honours by the Pope^[8]. When Henry II took the French throne, however, he promised to investigate the affair, and had the leaders of the expedition tried by the Parlement of Paris, though all but one of them was eventually acquitted^[9]. The massacres may have been influential in the process wherein the Waldenses became more and more attached to the Calvinist churches.^[1][1]

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} Medieval heresy: popular movements from the Gregorian reform to the Reformation by Malcolm D. Lambert p.389
2. ^ Audisio, Gabriel, Les Vaudois: Histoire d'une dissidence XIIe - XVIe siecle, Fayard, Turin, 1998. pg. 270.
3. ^ Audisio, Gabriel, Les Vaudois: Histoire d'une dissidence XIIe - XVIe siecle, Fayard, Turin, 1998. pg. 270.
4. ^ Francis I R. J. Knecht p.405
5. ^ Audisio, Gabriel. Les Vaudois. Fayard, Turin, 1998. pg 271.
6. ^ Francis I R. J. Knecht p.405
7. ^ Monter, William. Judging the French Reformation. Harvard UP, 1999. pg 99.
8. ^ Cameron, Euan. The Reformation of the Heretics. Clarendon, Oxford. 1984. pg 154.
9. ^ Cameron, 154.