The Development Of Pluralism In Modern Britain And France

Europe is increasingly multi-ethnic and multi-faith, as well as multi-cultural. Western democracies now comprise a plurality of fundamental opinions and inherited cultures; it is not clear how (or if!) they can be related to each other without involving either oppression or anarchy. This debate requires historical understanding and a contemporary grasp of the points at issue amongst different cultures. By virtue of their proximity and frequent historical interaction, Britain and France lend themselves to comparative study. The studies in this volume collectively demonstrate that the affairs of religious minorities in these two countries were not only of concern to themselves and their national established churches. Rather, over a long-term period, they had a sustained impact on many other issues. All chapters illustrate the problematic shift from a persecutory to a pluralistic mentality.

This is the first comparative study of early twentieth-century French and British schools of political pluralism. A wide-ranging survey of the works of thinkers such as JN Figgis, GDH Cole, Harold Laski, Edouard Berth, Maxime Leroy and Léon Duguit, Pluralist Thought and the State in Britain and France, 1900-25 is a major contribution both to the study of national tradition of political thought and to the understanding of relationships between state, groups and individuals in democratic societies.

The idea of the centralized State has played a powerful role in shaping French republicanism. But for two hundred years, many have tried to find other ways of being French and Republican. These essays challenge the traditional account, bringing together new insights from leading scholars.

Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt/M., New York, Wien. France was the largest unified political entity in early-modern Europe to attempt a major, institutionalised degree of religious pluralism. For a monarchy that had its roots in catholic traditions this was, indeed, an adventure full of unexpected consequences. This volume is based on papers delivered at a colloquium at the University of Exeter in 1999 and takes as its starting-point the various edicts - culminating in the famous edict of Nantes of 1598 - that epitomised religious pluralism. Its authors explore the national, international and local dimensions of a pluralism that challenged established notions of political authority and social behaviour at every turn. At the national level, the king issued edicts which embodied the royal intent but to what extent did they carry the endorsement of the parlements, the sovereign courts whose task was to interpret the law and adapt it to circumstance? How were these edicts carried out locally in the provinces? How different was the security of France's protestant minority within the wider community after the king had granted them such controversial privileges? How does the pluralism accorded a religious minority compare with other countries? The chapters in this volume tackle these questions from new and interesting viewpoints, encourage a comparative approach and reflect the new agenda for the subject that emerged in the light of the 400th anniversary commemoration of the edict of Nantes in 1998. Contents: Keith Cameron: Foreword - Alain Tallon: Gallicanism and Religious Pluralism in France in the Sixteenth Century - Penny Roberts: Religious Pluralism in Practice: The Enforcementof the Edicts of Pacification - Mark Greengrass: Pluralism and Equality: The Peace of Monsieur, May 1576 - Daniel Hickey: Enforcing the Edict of Nantes: The 1599 Commissions and Local Elites in Dauphine and Poitou-Aunis - David J. B. Trim: Edict of Nantes: Product of Military Success or Failure? - Alan James: Between 'Huguenot' and 'Royal': Naval Affairs during the Wars of Religion - Luc Racaut: The Cultural Obstacles to Religious Pluralism in the Polemic of the French Wars of Religion - Loris Petris: Faith and Religious Policy in Michel de l'Hospital's Civic Evangelism - Yvonne Roberts: Jean-Antoine de Baif and the Adventure of Pluralism - Timothy Watson: 'When is a Huguenot not a Huguenot?' Lyon 1525-1575 - Philip Conner: Peace in the Provinces. Peace-making in the Protestant South during the Later Wars of Religion - Elizabeth C. Tingle: The Intolerant City? Nantes and the Origins of the Catholic League 1580-1589? - Richard Bonney: The Obstacles to Pluralism in Early Modern France - Kate Currey: Degrees of Toleration: The Conjuncture of the Edict of Nantes and Dynastic Relations between Lorraine and France 1598-1610 - Andrew Spicer: Huguenots, Jesuits and French Religious Architecture in Early Seventeenth Century France - Daniella J. Kostroun: The Nuns of Port Royal: A Case of Reasonable Disobedience? - Gillian Weiss: Commerce, Conversion and French Religious Identity in the Early-Modern-Mediterranean - Alexandra Walsham: England's Nicodemites: Crypto-Catholicism and Religious Pluralism in the Post-Reformation Context - Mark Greengrass: Epilogue: The Adventure of Religious Pluralism in Early-Modern France.

With one exception, the papers collected here were first presented at a conference sponsored by the British Academy held at Newbold College, Berkshire, in 1999. This volume provides a historical perspective to the emerging literature on pluralism. A range of experts examine how Calvinists in early modern France, England, Hungary and the Netherlands related to members of other faith communities and to society in general. The essays explore the importance of Calvinists' separateness and potent sense of identity. To what extent did this enable them to survive persecution? Did it at times actually induce repression? Where Calvinists held political power, why did they often turn from persecuted into persecutors? How did they relate to (Ana)Baptists, Quakers and Catholics, for example? The conventional wisdom that toleration (and, in consequence, pluralism) resulted from a waning in religious zeal is queried and alternative explanations considered. Finally, the concept of 'pluralism' itself is investigated.

This wide-ranging volume advances our understanding of law and empire in the early modern world. Distinguished contributors expose new dimensions of legal pluralism in the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Ottoman empires. In-depth analyses probe such topics as the shifting legal privileges of corporations, the intertwining of religious and legal thought, and the effects of clashing legal authorities on sovereignty and subjecthood. Case studies show how a variety of individuals engage with the law and shape the contours of imperial rule. The volume reaches from Peru to New Zealand to Europe to capture the varieties and continuities of legal pluralism and to probe the analytic power of the concept of legal pluralism in the comparative study of empires. For legal scholars, social scientists, and historians, Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500-1850 maps new approaches to the study of empires and the global history of law.

In this book three main things have been accomplished. First, it locates the emergence of religious pluralism as a problem for Christian theology. Secondly, it shows the critical weaknesses in the approaches to pluralism that we find in the works of Gavin D'Costa, George Lindbeck and John Hick, all major players in the field of religious pluralism. Retrieving theological material from seventeenth-century Comenius and eighteenth-century Zinzendorf, the book shows that the Protestant tradition has suitable theological material that can better serve the development of a theology of religious pluralism. Thirdly, the book enters into dialogue with Islam and highlights exciting new approaches to addressing the issues of salvation, the Qur'an and Christology. One critical outcome of the book is that it breaks new ground in showing the limitations of liberation theology and proposes a fascinating, new, pluralism-sensitive hermeneutical approach to contextual theology.

Rich in detail and broad in scope, this majestic book is the first to reveal the interaction of politics and religion in France during the crucial years of the long seventeenth century. Joseph Bergin begins with the Wars of Religion, which proved to be longer and more violent in France than elsewhere in Europe and left a legacy of unresolved tensions between church and state with serious repercussions for each. He then draws together a series of unresolved problems—both practical and ideological—that challenged French leaders thereafter, arriving at an original and comprehensive view of the close interrelations between the political and spiritual spheres of the time. The author considers the powerful religious dimension of French royal power even in the seventeenth century, the shift from reluctant toleration of a Protestant minority to increasing aversion, conflicts over the independence of the Catholic church and the power of the pope over secular rulers, and a wealth of other interconnected topics.