Epistle to Marguerite de Navarre and Preface to a Sermon by John Calvin
Epistle to Marguerite de Navarre and Preface to a Sermon by John Calvin
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£80.00
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226142784
Number of Pages: 120
Published: 15/07/2004
Width: 1.6 cm
Height: 2.4 cm
Born to a noble family in Tournai, Marie Dentiere (1495-1561) left her convent in the 1520s to work for religious reform. She married a former priest and with her husband went to Switzerland, where she was active in the Reformation's takeover of Geneva. Dentiere's Very Useful Epistle (1539) is the first explicit statement of reformed theology by a woman to appear in French. Addressed to Queen Marguerite of Navarre, sister of the French king Francis I, the Epistle asks the queen to help those persecuted for their religious beliefs. Dentiere offers a stirring defense of women and asserts their right to teach the word of God in public. In the Epistle, she also defends John Calvin against his enemies and attacks the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. Her Preface (1561) to one of Calvin's sermons criticizes immodesty and extravagance in clothing and warns the faithful to be vigilant. Undaunted in the face of suppression and ridicule, this outspoken woman persisted as an active voice in the Reformation.
"Marie Dentiere was an outspoken Protestant. . . . McKinley discusses the question of authorship: did Dentiere herself write the Very Useful Epistle . . . to the Queen of Navarre . . . (1539), did her husband Froment do so, or was it a collaborative effort? McKinley supports the latter view, arguing that the Epistle 'clearly expressed doctrinal and political positions that the couple shared' and that 'collaboration was standard practice for spreading the word of the reformed religion.' McKinley's translation is excellent; it retains the rhetorical energy of the original, while making the text accessible to a modern reader. . . . For the Preface to a Sermon by John Calvin on How Women Should Be Modest in Their Dress, as McKinley points out, Dentiere's argument is "less feminist" than in the Epistle; nonetheless, Dentiere 'assumes the paradoxical position of teaching about a passage [from 1 Timothy 2] that expressly forbade her to do so'. . . . . Dentiere's strident yet engaging voice is well worth listening to, for what it tells us about the author's beliefs and about the situaltion of an articulate and intelligent owoman in Calvinist Geneva." --Jane Couchman "Renaissance Quarterly "
