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View Tree for Jean GossettJean Gossett (b. 26 June 1618, d. 9 May 1730)

Jean Gossett (son of Gossett)35 was born 26 June 1618 in St. Sauveur, France, and died 9 May 1730 in Isle of Jersey, England. He married Marie.

 Includes NotesNotes for Jean Gossett:
The Gossetts were French Huguenots - Protestants. The history of the Huguenots centers on the revocation in 1685 of the Edict of Nantes. The edict, signed in 1598, had granted a broad measure of religious liberty, civil rights, and security to the Huguenots, who were a religious minority in France. This revocation did not mark the beginning of the major migration of Huguenots from France. The beginning was marked after the St. Bartholemew's Day Massacre on Aug. 24, 1572. The sixteenth century was a time of profound religious anguish climaxed by the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572. The century can only be understood in context of the events during the decade prior to the massacre. Only by analyzing the depth of religious animosity and the potential for violence can one understand the Age of Religious Wars in France. As in any battle, there were two sides, but the lines were often blurred. Catholics viewed Protestant ideas as a sign of God's impending wrath; therefore, anti-Huguenot violence was an attempt to escape God's wrath. In order to best understand the motives for war, it is necessary to understand the people involved in the French Wars of Religion. The Huguenots had no problem in understanding their situation. They had suffered martyrdom for their belief in the "true" word of the gospel, and for their survival, they were willing to fight a succession of civil wars. Their Catholic opponents, however, interpreted the wars, and the massacre in particular, as one "tumult" or "disorder" after another. The Catholics viewed themselves as the upholders of the "true" law, and for that reason, Protestants were seen as hindrances to that perfect order. Considering this divergence of opinion, it is possible to see why the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre proved to be so catastrophic.

Historian Barbara B. Diefendorf identified three stages in the conflict preceding the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. The first period, from 1557 to 1563, was characterized by the gradual breakdown of order in Paris and included the first civil war, which was the first attempt at so-called toleration, the Edict of Amboise. The second period, from 1563 to 1567, was marked by a subsistence crisis which increased the aura of fear in France, particularly in Paris, and also included the second war of religion. The third period, from 1567 to 1572, was characterized by the intensification of religious discontent and included the third war of religion. This last period heightened the volatile atmosphere in Paris and therefore, set the stage for the massacre.

In order to comprehend the struggles that occurred, one has to understand the parties involved. The Catholic faction drew its intellectual leadership from the theology faculty at the University of Paris, and somewhat from Jesuit instructors. The aristocratic Guise family provided political and military leadership in the form of Henri, duc de Guise. It was he who would later orchestrate the assassination of their Protestant rival, Gaspard de Coligny. Henri was convinced that Coligny had been involved in the assassination of his father, Henri, at the end of the first war of religion in 1562. Therefore, the struggle between Protestant and Catholic, at least among the upper classes, was also a family struggle. The Huguenot struggle for recognition was also accompanied by the development of leadership on the Protestant side, in the form of both Coligny and Louis Bourbon, prince de Conde. It should come as no surprise therefore that attempts at resolution of the conflict failed miserably. For example, the Colloquy of Poissy in 1561 was an attempt to obtain religious concord as each party tried to conform the other to its own faith. The Catholics wanted to restore Roman Catholic unity, while the Protestants wished to convert the entire kingdom of France. The project was doomed from the beginning because the Calvinists demanded tolerance, or permission for their congregations to worship as they wished. To the Catholics, the toleration of another religion meant violation of the terms of the colloquy, and therefore, a destruction of their plans for the religious "unity" of the kingdom. Needless to say, the Colloquy of Poissy was an abysmal failure, although it set the stage for future negotiations. Even after Catherine de Medici became regent for her son Charles IX in December 1560, the long debate over religious policy continued. The king issued the Edict of Fontainbleau on 19 April 1561, which forbade his subjects to injure or provoke anyone on account of their religion. For example, the edict prohibited the use of such terminology as "papist" or "Huguenot", and prohibited all offenses against property. The edict, however, was interpreted loosely by the citizens of Paris who interpreted it to mean that "the fullest liberty was given to everyone to profess the religion he chose," and Parisians were outraged by the king's apparent toleration of "heresy." The "Parlement" also interpreted the edict as allowing full religious diversity, and they in turn urged the king to revise the edict. The revised edict, the July 1561 Edict of Saint-Germain, failed to end the tensions. It was ambiguously worded and it reaffirmed the provisions of the previous edict of Fontainbleau against provocations and the violation of property. The edict was too severe to
please the Protestants, and too liberal for the Catholics, who feared the Protestants would ignore it.

Even these limited concessions encouraged the spread of Protestant preaching, and one high noble family even openly held services in their house in obvious defiance of the edict of July. Parisian Catholics were infuriated by what they termed the "insolence" of the Huguenots, and Catholic priests urged their parishioners to take up weapons to defend their churches from the heretics. Only a fragile order prevailed, and this was shattered in late December 1561 with the clash between Huguenots worshipping in the faubourg of Saint-Marcel, and the Catholics in the neighboring church of Saint-Medard. In the ensuing melee, it was impossible to determine who was at fault. The Protestant worshippers, annoyed by the bells of Saint-Medard, sent over some envoys to ask that the bells be silenced. When the Catholics refused, more Protestants from the Patriarche arrived to see what was happening. The parishioners of Saint-Medard perceived that they were under attack, and a battle ensued that resulted in serious injuries. The Catholics felt that they were under attack, and it was as if the warnings given to them by their priests had come true. The Catholics were scandalized to learn that no Huguenots had been arrested, although thirty Catholics, including six priests, had been. Therefore, when a new edict was issued in January of 1562, the Edict of Saint-Germain, the Saint-Medard affair had not been forgotten. This edict is generally known as an edict of limited toleration, the first of its kind, and its purpose was "d'appaiser les troubles et sedition pour le fait de la religion." Although the edict promised toleration, was this what the Huguenots really desired? Historians have assumed that what the Huguenots really wanted was religious toleration, but this assumption is somewhat invalid. Neither Calvin nor his apostle Theodore Beza ever developed a coherent doctrine of tolerance. Calvin's message centered on the indivisibility of Christian truth and faith. The Huguenots wished to make it clear to the Catholics that "...ainsi nous...leur ferons confessons devant ceste Saincte Assemblee, que nous suyvons la vraye Eglise, et non point eux...." In other words, the Huguenots refused to believe in diversity, and wished to demonstrate that only they followed the true Church. In 1562, the Huguenots were demanding temporary tolerance in order to allow them to gain time, to publish more propaganda, and to acquire enough manpower to enable themselves to convert the entire kingdom. This edict was strongly Catholic, and it made few concessions; however, while purely religious meetings were not prevented, all sedition was to be prosecuted. It was obligatory to observe Church holidays, and ministers had to swear to observe the edict. This edict was the last hope to avoid war, at least for the Protestants. Due to the opposition of the extreme Catholics, it failed in its purpose, which helped to precipitate a war it was intended to avert. The edict was followed by a "declaration" of concord specifying that the edict of January was not to be seen as implying approval for two religions in the kingdom. Parlement refused to register the edict until 6 March, for the edict continued to deny them jurisdiction in heresy cases.

It was in circumstances such as these that the duc de Guise entered Paris on March 16 after having defeated the Huguenots at Vassy. Guise, a staunch Catholic, was welcomed as the man who would put an end to the Huguenot insolence. He deliberately entered through the gate of St.-Denis, an entrance reserved only for royal entrances. The Catholic crowds rejoiced at his arrival, but their jubilation was aggravated by the presence of the Protestant leader Louis de Bourbon, prince de Conde, who was in Paris to seek redress for the massacre at Vassy. The Parisian governor, worried by the prospect of civil war within the city, forced Conde and Guise, along with Charles IX under Guise's protection, to leave Paris. Historians since have noted that Conde exacerbated the situation when he abandoned his king and the capital to his Catholic enemies. On April 6, the king was brought back to the city, and Paris was enveloped in an atmosphere of anticipation and fear that Conde would attack. The king issued a declaration exempting Paris from the January edict, and forbidding any exercise of the new religion in the area. This was a failure of the politics of moderation, but a victory for the Parisians in their struggle against the encroachment of the new religion. On May 26, all Protestants were ordered to leave Paris within twenty-four hours, and the militia captains were supposed to identify all the citizens in each quartier who were "notorious" for their religious beliefs. By late June, all semblance of order had collapsed, and as word of Protestant victories elsewhere in France reached Paris, the Huguenots began to pillage Catholic houses.

After the assassination of the Catholic duc de Guise by a Huguenot, Jean Poltrot de Mere, in February 1563, it became difficult to maintain order in Paris. The Catholics demanded de Mere's release from prison so that they could carry out justice in their own way, and de Mere was publicly executed on March 18 before a large crowd, a signal of triumph over the enemy and a warning for the future. The execution of de Mere paved the way for the occurrence of the Peace of Amboise, signed on the next day, March 19, but
the Parisians wanted retribution, not peace. The Edict of Amboise was the first of the so-called "edicts of pacification," so named because they heralded the formal end of civil wars, although not necessarily in the minds of the people. This edict supposedly ended the first war of religion. Unfortunately, this edict was weighted in favor of the nobility, but as Sutherland notes, the real problem was in the towns. All Church property seized during the war was to be restored, and Conde and his followers were pardoned. All those who
had committed injurious acts during the war were given amnesty, and religious prisoners of war were to be released. The edict forbade harassment or prosecution on religious grounds, and it permitted Protestants to practice their religion and return to their homes in Paris. Releasing the edict was one thing, but enforcing it was a different matter. After the edict was announced, the king condemned the city for refusing to allow the Huguenots to return. Then during the summer of 1563 that he announced his coming of age and full sovereignty. He intended to enforce the Edict of Amboise, and it was only in the autumn of 1563 that things settled down somewhat, thus ending the first stage of Diefendorf's categorization of the wars of religion.

During the next few years, Paris was consumed by a subsistence crisis. Some contemporary observers, such as Claude Haton, believed that any natural disaster was a sign of God's wrath. He noted that the plague raged in Paris for over a year, resulting in twenty-five thousand deaths. In 1564, a series of natural disasters, such as an inordinate amount of rain and the overflowing of the Seine, destroyed part of the new crop. By 1565, the city was trying to import grain. Grain prices remained high throughout 1565 and 1566 when rains again wiped out part of the crop. By August 1566, the crisis was sufficiently over, but the prices remained at a level roughly double that of the pre-war average. Nevertheless, this period of crisis between wars was relatively free of violence, but the period of aggravated socio-economic tensions fueled popular hatreds to the extent that the second religious war broke out in the autumn of 1567.

The Protestants were irritated by the crown's failure to enforce the Edict of Amboise, and they attempted to seize the king at Meaux, a province in the vicinity where the royal family was staying at Monceaux. Word of the conspiracy leaked out, however, and the king escaped to Paris. The Protestants argued that they had been trying to save the king from his "evil advisors," but this argument was unconvincing, and Charles IX was unlikely to forgive the Protestants quickly for forcing him to leave his home and run for cover. The Protestants decided to attack Paris, and they laid siege to the porte Sainte-Denis. Parisian Catholics believed the Huguenots were prepared to burn them in their beds, and the newly re-armed Catholics began to search the city for the potential Protestant instigators of this act. Fear and anger produced a night of frenzied violence the likes of which Paris had never seen. There were rumors that the flayed skin of a man had been found in the streets, and this was seen as an omen for the Parisians. Contemporaries after the Saint-Bartholomew's Day Massacre noted that the flayed skin, the symbol of Saint Bartholomew, who was martyred by being skinned alive, perhaps predicted the future occurrence of the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

The Protestants, contrary to Catholic fears, never entered the city, and Catherine was ready to negotiate for peace. However, even if Catherine were willing, the Parisians were not, and they bitterly resented the concessions she made in the Peace of Longjumeau in the spring of 1568. The popular sentiment was reflected in a poem of the time, "Pour traicter ceste paix, que gaigne notre Royne? The answer: Hate. The edict restored the provisions of the Peace of Amboise from 1563, and unlike previous edicts, it was sent directly to the "gouverneurs" for publication rather than awaiting approval of the parlements.

The peace could not last in the atmosphere of resentment that surrounded it. Therefore, a revised edict was promulgated in September 1568, the Edict of Saint-Maur, which was actually intended to precipitate the third religious war by Guise, the cardinal of Lorraine. It expressed an extreme Catholic point-of-view, and its purpose was to prohibit the exercise of all religions but Catholicism, thereby making it "irrevocable and perpetual." The third religious war thus began in August 1568, and in this war in particular, mob violence was a particular threat. Many Parisian Protestants had left the city after the outbreak of the second war, and did not return until after the conclusion of the third religious war. Some remained in the city, although they were subject to severe restrictions. Claude Haton reported in his Memoires that "the Huguenots were so hated by the Parisian populace that, if the king and authorities had let them have their way, there would not have been one Huguenot in the whole city who was not attacked."

It was in such an atmosphere of distrust that the Cross of Gastines affair occurred. Normally under such circumstances, the Gastine brothers would have been fined, but in the situation in Paris, their sentence was increased to death. The affair concerned the property of two prominent Parisian Protestant merchant brothers, Philippe and Richard Gastine, whose land was confiscated after it was discovered that they had been using it for religious purposes, such as preaching or communions. The court order condemning the
Gastines required that their house be dismantled and the land sold, with the money being used to erect a stone cross with a tablet explaining what had happened as a warning against future occurrences. The Parlement erected "une haute pyramide de pierre ayant un crucifix au sommet de la maison." The Gastine family and local Protestants petitioned for demolition of the Cross of Gastines, but the petition infuriated Parisian Catholics who felt that its removal would provoke riots for the cross had become a symbol of the government's commitment to their faith. For the Protestants, the cross was a symbol of past persecutions. The court compromised and moved the cross to a new site in the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents, a compromise unpopular with much of Paris. Rioters destroyed property near what had been that of the Gastines, and so Parisian Protestants were a marked people as the riots continued. The monument became a symbol of religious hatred, and the people were given another symbol when Admiral Coligny, leader of the Huguenot party after the death of Conde in battle in 1569, was hanged in effigy in the same place where the murderer of the duc de Guise had been executed. This symbolic execution would later become reality on Saint Bartholomew's Day when Coligny became the first victim of the 1572 massacre. These demonstrations of religious hatred symbolized Parisian religious hatred, and resistance to any form of toleration or peaceful coexistence. The purpose of the August 1570 Edict of Saint-Germain was to restore peace. Article one imposed an amnesty, and article 2 forbade attacks, injuries, and reproaches. This edict was the first to give civil and judicial rights to Protestants; there would be no more religious discrimination regarding admission to schools, universities, hospitals, or other public institutions, and Huguenots could be appointed to public office. This edict was declared as an edict to supersede all others. Yet, like earlier edicts of pacification ending wars, this one was bitterly opposed by the Roman Catholic Parisian populace.

Throughout the 1560's, the Huguenots had continued to express their militancy. They were far from being docile, and they actively sought new converts in their attempts to gain control of the city government. They felt they represented the most honorable part of the city, but to the Catholics, they appeared arrogant. Historian Philip Benedict has argued that the second and third war of religion only served to enforce the Huguenot's perceptions of themselves, for they continued to survive even in the face of repression. Their survival was proof of their moral strength and firm devotion to God's cause. It was this sense of superiority, Benedict argued, that the Catholics were pleased to destroy during the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

Catholic distrust of the Huguenots, and Huguenot disavowal of Catholicism continued in the atmosphere of distrust in the aftermath of the Peace of Saint-Germaine. As before, there was a distinct pattern of tension building in the city, demonstrated in the cross of Gastines riots in 1571. But tensions only increased with the preparations for the marriage of the royal princess Marguerite to the Huguenot prince of Navarre, Henri. This provided fodder for Catholic priests, who told their parishioners that God would surely be avenged for the impiety of such a union. Parisian Catholics were also concerned by the numbers of Huguenots who had begun to gather in Paris for the wedding, and by reports that religious services were being held among the Huguenot guests. When Coligny was wounded on August 22, tensions increased. Shots were fired at him from the window of a house near his lodgings. He had apparently bent over at the time of the shooting, therefore, escaping the brunt of the volley of shots. He was wounded in the left arm and he lost the index finger on his right hand. He is purported to have said, "I believe myself blessed to have been thus wounded for the name of God. As a result of the attack, city officers feared the possibility of riots. They took precautions, but their attempts were futile, and by the next day, Protestants had begun to demand revenge for the attack on Coligny, leaving Paris trapped in an aura of fear. This was the situation in Paris on the eve of the Saint-Bartholomew's Day Massacre, and sources detailing the massacre itself are suspect as to their validity. Historians do not know for certain who gave the order for the massacre, whether it was Catherine or Charles IX, or even if the massacre had been premeditated. Both Diefendorf and Nicola Sutherland agree that no matter who was responsible for the death of Coligny, it was most certainly not Catherine de Medici, although neither were sure who initiated the massacre. Diefendorf blamed Charles IX and the queen mother not only for instigating the killings, but also for being so ignorant of the rising religious tensions in Paris. Yet after the attack on Coligny, the Huguenots in town for the wedding remained in Paris, where they became more outspoken in their threats against perpetrators of such a crime. Catholics feared that the Protestants intended to start a new war with an uprising in Paris and a coup against the royal family. Charles IX feared a new civil war, and some historians have argued that he articulated the plan for the massacre to ward off the possibility of a new civil war. Various members of the royal court have been seen as responsible for telling Charles to instigate the massacre, namely the queen mother, the duc de Guise, and the duc d'Anjou. De Thou, in his piece, "The Massacre of St. Bartholomew," wrote that the queen was the instigator of the massacre, and argued that the massacre was premeditated. The king feared his mother was reproaching him for cowardice, so he gave the orders to Guise to begin the murder and therefore, the massacres.

What made this massacre worse than previous insurrections? The power of the spoken word, or at least the rumor of such words, was important here. The massacre was touched off by the murder of Coligny; many contemporary sources reported that when Coligny was killed, the tocsin at Saint-Germain was rung, which was a sign for the general massacre to begin. Regardless of when the massacre began, it had its impetus in the assassination of Coligny by the duc de Guise. As the political and military head of the most staunchly Catholic faction in France, this made the murder even more gruesome. Guise apparently called for verification that the murder had been accomplished, and the nearly unrecognizable body of Coligny was thrown from the window. Guise apparently then gave the order for mass killings throughout the city, noting "it is the king's command." Those who overheard it may have misconstrued his meaning, for they believed that he meant the king had commanded the death of all of the Huguenots. Supposedly Guise raced through the streets shouting, "Kill them all, kill them all; for it is the king's command." Meanwhile the headless body of Coligny was hanged in the central square of Montfaucon in Paris until a group of Protestants, grieved by the display, buried what was left of his remains. Catholics were also delighted by the blossoming leaves of an old hawthorne tree in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents, where the Cross of the Gastines was located, and they felt that this was a sign of God's pleasure at the murder of Coligny. In general, the murder of Coligny was seen by Catholics as a good deed, because he had become the enemy in Catholic propaganda. The admiral was a traitor who had declared "une guerre universelle a feu et a sang, contre Dieu, contre les Rois, Princes, et Potentats, contre les Polices, peuples et Republiques...."

Before it spread to other towns, the massacre for "La Cause" became a massacre on a grand scale of huge numbers of Huguenots in Paris. It lasted three days in Paris, and there was not only a ritual aspect to the killings, but also what Natalie Davis called "rites of violence." The crowds included merchants, notaries, lawyers, clerics, and other professionals as well as commoners and even priests. Davis noted that there was some sense of purpose in the riots, as the Catholics felt they had a purpose in trying to exterminate the Huguenots. The massacre also may have had sanction from political authority, differentiating it from previous attacks, and this was one measure which the Protestants did not fight, an aberration from the norm. There were definite patterns to the Protestant and Catholic religious riots. In general, with the exception of Saint Bartholomew, the Protestants destroyed objects, such as sacred images and crucifixes, while the Catholics usually went after human beings.

Historians generally agree that the massacres in August and September were not the product of a premeditated royal scheme to exterminate the Huguenots. Charles IX only ordered a selective strike when he called for the murder of Coligny, which was thus distorted into a call for a general massacre by ultra-Catholic elements at the royal court and in the Parisian government, thus explaining Davis' argument that the massacre was sanctioned by the government. The question of responsibility for the massacre remains unanswered. Some contemporary Catholics thought it was premeditated; however, historians generally agree that it was not. Catherine has been blamed for the massacre perhaps because she was a foreigner; she was of Italian blood, and not of an overly prestigious royal lineage. The attack on Catherine was most vigorous in the immediate aftermath of the war, and a biography known as The Life of Catherine de Medicis, published after the death of Charles IX, condemned her for violating salic law, which prohibited direct rule by women. She was viewed by contemporary Catholic authors as desiring to be the sole ruler of France, and these authors vilified her for what they perceived as her role in the massacre. Catholic authors at the time blamed the king and the government for ordering the death of the Huguenots since they felt the Huguenots had formed a plot against the royal family. They felt God had inspired the king to uncover the plot and the Huguenots rebelled against both God and the king. To Protestants, the massacre was treason. Theodore de Beze, the apostle of Calvin, wrote: "Nous sommes dans le deuil et le gemissement. Dieu veuille avoir pitie de nous. Jamais on n'a vu tant de perfidie, tant d'atrocite - que de fois je le lui ai predit! Que de fois je l'ai averti! Dieu l'a permis, Dieu justement irrite et pourtant il est notre Saveur." He spoke of perfidy to qualify the royal act that he believed had ordered the massacre.

Following the massacre, Protestants converted in large numbers; others left their towns and fled to Heidelburg or Strasbourg. For example, 700 left in September, 350 in October, and 250 in November. After the massacre, Catholic parish registers were filled with documentation concerning those who were presented for baptism or "rebaptized." The new converts were made to approach and venerate the Host while carrying a lit candle, a ceremony designed to humble the heretics and show their acceptance of
transubstantiation. It has been estimated that 3000 Protestants made a formal act of reconciliation with the church in the wake of the massacre. One of the more credible records of the Saint Bartholowmew's Day Massacre was that of Pastor Simon Goulart of Geneva and his Memoires de d'estat de France sous Charles IX. Goulart was a clergyman in Geneva, but his memoires covered French Protestantism from 1570 to 1574. His goal was to make martyrs of Coligny and other Protestant victims.

Historians have viewed Saint-Bartholomew's Day as a turning point in the religious conflicts, but not as an end in itself. However, the massacre could be seen as the first act that resulted in the triumph of Henri IV and the Edict of Nantes. The massacre was not an isolated event that began with the wounding of Coligny on August 22, but rather the culmination of tension and an act of faith on the part of a populace that believed itself to be acting out the will of God. The two different perceptions of the two not-so-different religions are important in understanding the Age of Religious Wars in France. Only against such a background is there evidence to explain the reasons for the massacre and for the wars themselves. This is best seen in the Parisian's resistance to every attempt at a truce or a negotiated peace with the Huguenot enemy. It is also important to keep in mind that very few understood the actual doctrinal differences between the Huguenots and the Catholics, but most of the commoners became involved because of emotional impulses. French Protestants simply could not understand why Catholics valued sentimental objects such as the Cross of the Gastines, that to the Protestants, were symbols of blasphemy. French Catholics could not understand why Protestants wished to destroy objects that were cherished as holy emblems by Catholics.

As you can see, Jean left France sometime after 1649 when John was born in France for the Isle of Jersy.[bellsa4.ged]


Children of Jean Gossett and Marie are:
  1. +John Gossett, b. 26 June 1649, St. Sauveur, France, d. 9 May 1739, Isle of Jersey, England.
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