Grove City College will present “Conscience and Coercion: The Early Protestants of Amiens, 1530- 1650” from Jan. 23 to Feb. 22 in the gallery of the Pew Fine Arts Center on campus.
The interactive exhibit uses images of early Protestants’ signatures or marks – usually applied to legal documents – and biographical sketches to provide a glimpse of the world of the early Reformation in a French city, the lives of its residents during that crucial era, and the depth of their convictions.
It was created by Dr. David Rosenberg, a Pittsburgh-based archivist and researcher, who worked with Grove City College students in Professor of History Dr. Elizabeth Baker’s public history course and Hilary Walczak ’09, director of College Archives and Galleries to present it on campus. Sophomore Anna Scott designed the exhibit’s website protestantsofamiens.com.
An opening reception with Rosenberg is set for 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25 in the gallery.
The goal of the exhibit, Rosenberg said, is to highlight the real people who made up the Protestant movement in Amiens, “a place in no way famous in the history of the Reformation” but one in which the forces of religious conflict were felt profoundly.
Centering the display on over a hundred framed signatures or marks inscribed by 16th and early 17th century Protestants – mostly from legal documents like marriage contracts and land transfers – paired, via display card and QR code, with facts known about their lives, Rosenberg illustrates some of the circumstances in which they rejected and were pressured to conform to traditional practices and beliefs. The exhibit emphasizes their existential reality and individual humanity.
The people memorialized in “Conscience and Coercion” lived through a turbulent era. In France, the earliest days of the Reformation brought wars of religion and an uneasy peace between the Catholic state and Protestant Huguenots that ended with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by King Louis XIV in 1685, which compelled Protestants to return to Catholicism or leave the country. As a result, the Huguenot diaspora spread around the globe, including North America.
Rosenberg, who has devoted many years of study to the subject, often wondered how far the individuals whose signatures or marks he had discovered were aware of the specifically historical significance of their actions. “Certainly,’ he said, “As their words attest, they were conscious of a sense of personal deliverance through divine grace, one that compelled them, among other things, to eschew participation in many of the traditional religious practices of Catholic France. “
“This exhibit highlights a small group of people who the victors were quick to forget. David’s work is bringing their story to light in a new way so that they can remain a part of history,” Walczak said.
This is the second exhibit Rosenberg has presented at Grove City College. The first, in April 2023, was “The Fruits of Hate: A French City during the Holocaust,” which also focused on Amiens. For more about that exhibit, visit jewsofthesomme.com.