French Kings and the Catholic Church, Episode 305

<p>In today's episode Annie Sargent talks to Jason Sager about the difficult relationship between French Kings and the Catholic church. And we couldn't get through this topic without talking about the French Wars of Religion.</p> <p>And it’s not just Kings, all of France has a complicated relationship with the Catholic church, even today! Just this morning I was talking to one of my neighbors and she brought up the fact that she goes to church regularly but she’s not a grenouille de bénitier. I bet you’ve never heard that expression.</p> <p>A grenouille de bénitier is a person who goes to church so much that she’s compared to a frog who lives in the font where they keep the holy water at the entrance of a Catholic church. You don’t have an expression like that in English, do you? That’s because as far as I know there is no English-speaking country where being a "churchy" person makes you stand out as an odd duck. You’ll get a heavy dose of French history and French culture in today’s episode.</p> <h2>French People and the Catholic Church</h2> <p>To set the stage, in the early 1500s world-wide you have Columbus sailing off from Spain. A lot of Chateaux were being built on the Loire Valley. François I wanted to be Emperor (but didn't manage). Leonardo da Vinci moved to France. But this is also the time when the wars of religion were happening in France.</p> <h3>The Reformation</h3> <p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther">Martin Luther</a>'s reformation also happened at that time. 1517-1522 is when he was excommunicated from the Catholic church. This began as a German reformation movement but it moved into France rapidly with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin">John Calvin</a> particularly who started his own reformed church in France. French Protestants are known as <a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenots">Huguenots</a> in France.</p> <h3>Huguenots</h3> <p>This is something French Kings didn't like to see because they saw themselves as the protectors of the Catholic faith