Lionel Laborie | Universiteit Leiden (original) (raw)

Books by Lionel Laborie

Routledge, 2022

Eschatology played a central role in both politics and society throughout the early modern period... more Eschatology played a central role in both politics and society throughout the early modern period. It inspired people to strive for social and political change, including sometimes by violent means, and prompted in return strong reactions against their religious activism. From the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, numerous apocalyptical and messianic movements came to the fore across Eurasia and North Africa, raising questions about possible interconnections.
Why were eschatological movements so pervasive in early modern times? This volume provides some answers to this question by exploring the interconnected histories of confessions and religions from Moscow to Cusco. It offers a broad picture of Christian and, to a lesser extent, Jewish and Islamic eschatological movements from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, thereby bridging important and long-standing gaps in the historiography.
Apocalypse Now will appeal to both researchers and students of the history of early modern religion and politics in the Christian, Jewish and Islamic worlds. By exploring connections between numerous eschatological movements, it gives a fresh insight into one of the most promising fields of European and global history.

Brill, 2020

In this important collection of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together... more In this important collection of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together a huge range of vital sources for the study of prophecy in the early modern world. This meticulously edited 3-volume set includes rare material and fascinating manuscripts published in English for the first time. Volumes are organised geographically, each with its own introduction by a world-renowned expert. Together with their respective contributors, they show how prophecies circulated widely throughout this period at all levels of society. Indeed, they often emerged in times of crisis and were delivered as warnings as well as signals of hope. Moreover, they were constantly adapted and translated to suit ever changing contexts – including those for which they had not been originally intended.

Brill, 2020

In this important collection of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together... more In this important collection of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together a huge range of vital sources for the study of prophecy in the early modern world. This meticulously edited 3-volume set includes rare material and fascinating manuscripts published in English for the first time. Volumes are organised geographically, each with its own introduction by a world-renowned expert. Together with their respective contributors, they show how prophecies circulated widely throughout this period at all levels of society. Indeed, they often emerged in times of crisis and were delivered as warnings as well as signals of hope. Moreover, they were constantly adapted and translated to suit ever changing contexts – including those for which they had not been originally intended.

Brill, 2020

In this important collection of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together... more In this important collection of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together a huge range of vital sources for the study of prophecy in the early modern world. This meticulously edited 3-volume set includes rare material and fascinating manuscripts published in English for the first time. Volumes are organised geographically, each with its own introduction by a world-renowned expert. Together with their respective contributors, they show how prophecies circulated widely throughout this period at all levels of society. Indeed, they often emerged in times of crisis and were delivered as warnings as well as signals of hope. Moreover, they were constantly adapted and translated to suit ever changing contexts – including those for which they had not been originally intended.

This book examines the nature and significance of religious enthusiasm in early Enlightenment Eng... more This book examines the nature and significance of religious enthusiasm in early Enlightenment England. In the early modern period, the term ‘enthusiasm’ was a smear word used to discredit the dissenters of the radical Reformation as dangerous religious fanatics. In England, the term gained prominence from the Civil War period and throughout the eighteenth century. Anglican ministers and the proponents of the Enlightenment used it more widely against Paracelsian chemists, experimental philosophers, religious dissenters and divines, astrologers or anyone claiming superior knowledge. As a result, our understanding of enthusiasm is largely influenced by the hostile discourse of Augustan moralist and early Enlighteners. But who exactly were these enthusiasts? What did they believe in, how did they operate as a community and what impact did they have on their contemporaries? This book aims to answer these questions by concentrating on the notorious case of the French Prophets. It demonstrates how the understanding of enthusiasm evolved around 1700, designating anything from a religious fanaticism to a social epidemic and even a bodily disease. It offers the first comprehensive approach to enthusiasm, looking at this multifarious issue from a successively social, religious, cultural, political and medical perspective. Based on extensive archival research, it sheds new light on the reality of enthusiasm away from the hostility of Enlightenment discourse.

Articles by Lionel Laborie

Leidschrift, 2023

Throughout the early modern period, Europe remained haunted by the religious tensions that had er... more Throughout the early modern period, Europe remained haunted by the religious tensions that had erupted from the Reformation. Despite the Peace of Augsburg (1555), the Edict of Nantes (1598) and the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which put an end to decades of religious wars, violence and persecution persisted well beyond. The Enlightenment and the spread of tolerationist ideas in the eighteenth century should not be regarded as the end of religious violence, but instead as a reminder that religious violence remained very much a reality in this period. Among the best-known examples of religious persecution in the eighteenth century are the Camisards, the Waldensians, the ‘Poor Palatines’, the Salzburgers, the Moravians, the Gordon and Priestley riots, to name just a few.
In France, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 revived religious tensions in the Protestant provinces of Languedoc and Dauphiné after nearly a century of tolerance. Beside causing the exile of some 200,000 French Protestants towards northern Europe, the Revocation opened a century-long era of clandestinity and discrimination that would last until the French Revolution. Historians generally distinguish between three phases in this period, even though the intensity of the persecution varied between provinces. The years 1685-1715 were the most violent, marked by forced conversions, brutal persecution and the Camisards’ revolt. The second phase, from 1715 to the early 1760s, corresponds to the organised revival of the French Protestant Church through clandestine assemblies and synods and the gradual decline of state persecution; and the third phase, from the early 1760s to the French Revolution, a return to a de facto religious tolerance.
This paper surveys the plight of French Protestants from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to the French Revolution. It nuances the grand narrative of a steady path towards religious toleration by highlighting regional disparities and integrating foreign – mostly Dutch – sources. It argues overall that, despite the death of Louis XIV in 1715 and the role of the Calas affair in changing public opinion, anti-Calvinist sentiments and discriminations remained vivid in southern France until the French Revolution.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Evangelicalism, 2022

This chapter explores the spread of evangelicalism in continental Europe and the British Empire a... more This chapter explores the spread of evangelicalism in continental Europe and the British Empire against the backdrop of the rise of capitalism in the eighteenth century. Starting from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, it briefly surveys different attitudes to religious tolerance across northern Europe to highlight the often- overlooked contribution of Huguenot, millenarian, and commercial networks to the emergence of evangelicalism. All of these groups either influenced early evangelicals theologically or supported their missions logistically and financially. Accordingly, this chapter surveys the economic foundations and teachings of Halle Pietists, the Moravians, and Methodists, as well as how their religious discourses evolved over the eighteenth century to adapt to the rise of capitalism. Overall it is argued that, although early evangelicals shared millenarian beliefs and experimented communal lifestyles, they rapidly reinvented themselves to become economically and theologically competitive on the religious marketplace. The support of wealthy bankers and merchants proved essential in this process and suggests that eighteenth-century capitalists helped finance early evangelicalism.

French History, 2022

Andrews in 2018. I would like to thank the reviewers for their insightful comments. I am grateful... more Andrews in 2018. I would like to thank the reviewers for their insightful comments. I am grateful to Jeroen Duindam, Michiel van Groesen, David van der Linden and David Thompson for their feedback on earlier drafts of this article. 1 A. Furetière, Dictionnaire universel (The Hague, 1690), iii. 722. All translations are mine, unless otherwise indicated.

Early Modern Prophecies in Transnational, National and Regional Contexts (vol. 1), 2020

This chapter explores the oral prophetic culture of several French Protestant movements that emer... more This chapter explores the oral prophetic culture of several French Protestant movements that emerged in south-eastern France in the aftermath of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. While Huguenots largely dismissed beliefs in prophecy and miracles as “superstitious” and “popish”, intensifying persecution in the 1680s led many to believe that they were living in the end times. Charismatic lay preachers replaced their pastors who had fled abroad and several generations of prophets survived underground in the remote mountains of Languedoc and Dauphiné over the eighteenth century. Their predictions of the relief of the ‘True’ --Protestant-- Church and the fall of Rome circulated in manuscript form and some were even published abroad. This chapter therefore sheds lights on the oral prophetic culture of the clandestine Huguenot community, starting with Isabeau Vincent and the “petits prophètes” of Dauphiné, whose prophecies circulated as far as New England; the French Quaker Daniel Raoux; the Camisards in the Cévennes; Isaac Elzière and the New Zionists; and the Huguenot minister Paul Rabaut. Considering these against the backdrop of other prophetic movements, it argues that the French eighteenth century was prophetic.

LES LUMIÈRES DE L'OMBRE : LIBRES PENSEURS, HÉRÉTIQUES, ESPIONS – Exploring the Early Modern Underground: Freethinkers, Heretics, Spies, 2020

Radicalism and Dissent in the World of Protestant Reform, Mar 2017

This essay reappraises the origins of French Quakerism based on new archival research conducted o... more This essay reappraises the origins of French Quakerism based on new archival research conducted on both sides of the Channel. It identifies 34 Quaker missionaries in 17th- and early 18C France, sheds new light on the French reception of Quakerism and suggests possible connections with non-violent, charismatic movements in Languedoc.

History of European Ideas, 2017

Freedom of religion generally resonates in the collective mind as a prized legacy of the European... more Freedom of religion generally resonates in the collective mind as a prized legacy of the European Enlightenment alongside most individual liberties and modern values. This assumption, however, is flawed as it tends to downplay centuries of religious pluralism and cohabitation. Tolerance, in other words, was a practice long before it became a theory. This article considers tolerance not as an idea, but as a religious belief and a practice in the early Enlightenment. Drawing from rare manuscript sources scattered over several countries, it argues that tolerance was a grassroots Christian belief primarily promoted by those who needed it the most: persecuted radical dissenters. It shows how the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 sparked a tolerationist spur in Protestant countries, ‘refuges’ that often offered only a limited level of freedom. By contrast, more radical forms of tolerance existed among underground millenarians and ecumenical societies of this period. These refuges and milieus made a significant contribution to the Enlightenment debate on tolerance and deserve to be acknowledged for it.

in Ariel Hessayon (ed.), Jane Lead and her Transnational Legacy, chapter 10 (pp. 213-239), Jun 2016

This essay examines the state of the Philadelphian Society in the aftermath of Jane Lead’s death ... more This essay examines the state of the Philadelphian Society in the aftermath of Jane Lead’s death in 1704. It challenges the centrality of her matriarchal authority and portrays her instead as a controversial, divisive figure among the Philadelphians, whose Society had already collapsed by the time of her death. It shows how the arrival of the Camisards in London in 1706 gave the Philadelphian Society a second life, as both movements merged into the ‘French Prophets’ the following year in celebration of the Union Act. Yet if the Prophets became notorious for their spiritual performances, it is argued that this owed more to the Philadelphians’ influence among them than to their actual French followers. Overall, this essay concludes that the Philadelphians proved far more radical than hitherto acknowledged and that Lead’s English legacy was almost non-existent.
This essay also contains a list of 70 Philadelphians together with their occupations in appendix.

Louis XIV Outside In: Images of the Sun King Beyond France (pp. 209-228), Nov 2015

Gerd Schwerhoff and Eric Piltz (eds), Gottlosigkeit und Eigensinn: Religiöse Devianz im konfessionellen Zeitalter (Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, Beiheft 51), pp. 413-433

Kriminelle - Freidenker - Alchemisten. Räume des Untergrunds in der Frühen Neuzeit (Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böhlau- Verlag), pp. 99-117, 2014

The Huguenots: France, Exile and Diaspora (Sussex Academic Press), pp. 125-133., 2013

French Studies Bulletin, 2011

Histoire de la Folie II, 2009

La Réforme protestante marqua l'apparition d'une conception personnelle de la foi, qui chez les p... more La Réforme protestante marqua l'apparition d'une conception personnelle de la foi, qui chez les plus dévots pouvait aller jusqu'à la folie. Luther désignait lui-même cet enthousiasme par le mot « schwärmer » en raison de l'effervescence fanatique des factions radicales, qu'il jugeait pareille à un bourdonnement d'abeilles. 1 Le terme « enthousiasme » entra également dans la langue française dès le XVI e siècle pour dénoncer la physicalité de ce fanatisme. Du grec « entheos », qui signifie « animé d'un transport divin », l'enthousiasme se caractérisait généralement par des états de transe et de violentes convulsions, au cours d'inspirations prétendument divines. Ce n'est que vers la fin du XVII e siècle qu'il revêtit une double signification, comme l'abbé Furetière le définit: ENTOUSIASME : Fureur prophétique ou poëtique qui transporte l'esprit, & qui luy fait dire des choses surprenantes & extraordinaires. 2 Voltaire confirma plus tard cette distinction entre inspiration artistique, donc créative, et le fanatisme destructeur de la religion en ces termes: L'enthousiasme est précisément comme le vin: il peut exciter tant de tumulte dans les vaisseaux sanguins, et de si violentes vibrations dans les nerfs, que la raison en est tout à fait détruite. Il peut ne causer que de légères secousses, qui ne fassent que donner au cerveau un peu plus d'activité: c'est ce qui arrive dans les grands mouvements d'éloquence, et surtout dans la poésie sublime. L'enthousiasme raisonnable est le partage des grands poètes. 3 C'est précisément de sa forme irrationnelle dont il est ici question, à propos de laquelle Voltaire s'interrogea: Les Grecs inventèrent-ils ce mot pour exprimer les secousses qu'on éprouve dans les nerfs, la dilatation et le resserrement des intestins, les violentes contractions du coeur, le cours précipité de ces esprits de feu qui montent des entrailles au cerveau quand on est vivement affecté? 4 Il faut ainsi se figurer l'enthousiasme comme un fanatisme du corps tout autant que de l'esprit. Le philosophe huguenot Pierre Bayle considérait d'ailleurs ces agitations comme des composantes essentielles de l'enthousiasme: « Les fanatiques qui n'ont ni convulsions, ni extases prophétiques, sont les plus suspects de fourberies. » 5 1 Michael Heyd, Be Sober and Reasonable: The Critique of Enthusiasm in seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, New York: E.

Routledge, 2022

Eschatology played a central role in both politics and society throughout the early modern period... more Eschatology played a central role in both politics and society throughout the early modern period. It inspired people to strive for social and political change, including sometimes by violent means, and prompted in return strong reactions against their religious activism. From the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, numerous apocalyptical and messianic movements came to the fore across Eurasia and North Africa, raising questions about possible interconnections.
Why were eschatological movements so pervasive in early modern times? This volume provides some answers to this question by exploring the interconnected histories of confessions and religions from Moscow to Cusco. It offers a broad picture of Christian and, to a lesser extent, Jewish and Islamic eschatological movements from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, thereby bridging important and long-standing gaps in the historiography.
Apocalypse Now will appeal to both researchers and students of the history of early modern religion and politics in the Christian, Jewish and Islamic worlds. By exploring connections between numerous eschatological movements, it gives a fresh insight into one of the most promising fields of European and global history.

Brill, 2020

In this important collection of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together... more In this important collection of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together a huge range of vital sources for the study of prophecy in the early modern world. This meticulously edited 3-volume set includes rare material and fascinating manuscripts published in English for the first time. Volumes are organised geographically, each with its own introduction by a world-renowned expert. Together with their respective contributors, they show how prophecies circulated widely throughout this period at all levels of society. Indeed, they often emerged in times of crisis and were delivered as warnings as well as signals of hope. Moreover, they were constantly adapted and translated to suit ever changing contexts – including those for which they had not been originally intended.

Brill, 2020

In this important collection of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together... more In this important collection of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together a huge range of vital sources for the study of prophecy in the early modern world. This meticulously edited 3-volume set includes rare material and fascinating manuscripts published in English for the first time. Volumes are organised geographically, each with its own introduction by a world-renowned expert. Together with their respective contributors, they show how prophecies circulated widely throughout this period at all levels of society. Indeed, they often emerged in times of crisis and were delivered as warnings as well as signals of hope. Moreover, they were constantly adapted and translated to suit ever changing contexts – including those for which they had not been originally intended.

Brill, 2020

In this important collection of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together... more In this important collection of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together a huge range of vital sources for the study of prophecy in the early modern world. This meticulously edited 3-volume set includes rare material and fascinating manuscripts published in English for the first time. Volumes are organised geographically, each with its own introduction by a world-renowned expert. Together with their respective contributors, they show how prophecies circulated widely throughout this period at all levels of society. Indeed, they often emerged in times of crisis and were delivered as warnings as well as signals of hope. Moreover, they were constantly adapted and translated to suit ever changing contexts – including those for which they had not been originally intended.

This book examines the nature and significance of religious enthusiasm in early Enlightenment Eng... more This book examines the nature and significance of religious enthusiasm in early Enlightenment England. In the early modern period, the term ‘enthusiasm’ was a smear word used to discredit the dissenters of the radical Reformation as dangerous religious fanatics. In England, the term gained prominence from the Civil War period and throughout the eighteenth century. Anglican ministers and the proponents of the Enlightenment used it more widely against Paracelsian chemists, experimental philosophers, religious dissenters and divines, astrologers or anyone claiming superior knowledge. As a result, our understanding of enthusiasm is largely influenced by the hostile discourse of Augustan moralist and early Enlighteners. But who exactly were these enthusiasts? What did they believe in, how did they operate as a community and what impact did they have on their contemporaries? This book aims to answer these questions by concentrating on the notorious case of the French Prophets. It demonstrates how the understanding of enthusiasm evolved around 1700, designating anything from a religious fanaticism to a social epidemic and even a bodily disease. It offers the first comprehensive approach to enthusiasm, looking at this multifarious issue from a successively social, religious, cultural, political and medical perspective. Based on extensive archival research, it sheds new light on the reality of enthusiasm away from the hostility of Enlightenment discourse.

Leidschrift, 2023

Throughout the early modern period, Europe remained haunted by the religious tensions that had er... more Throughout the early modern period, Europe remained haunted by the religious tensions that had erupted from the Reformation. Despite the Peace of Augsburg (1555), the Edict of Nantes (1598) and the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which put an end to decades of religious wars, violence and persecution persisted well beyond. The Enlightenment and the spread of tolerationist ideas in the eighteenth century should not be regarded as the end of religious violence, but instead as a reminder that religious violence remained very much a reality in this period. Among the best-known examples of religious persecution in the eighteenth century are the Camisards, the Waldensians, the ‘Poor Palatines’, the Salzburgers, the Moravians, the Gordon and Priestley riots, to name just a few.
In France, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 revived religious tensions in the Protestant provinces of Languedoc and Dauphiné after nearly a century of tolerance. Beside causing the exile of some 200,000 French Protestants towards northern Europe, the Revocation opened a century-long era of clandestinity and discrimination that would last until the French Revolution. Historians generally distinguish between three phases in this period, even though the intensity of the persecution varied between provinces. The years 1685-1715 were the most violent, marked by forced conversions, brutal persecution and the Camisards’ revolt. The second phase, from 1715 to the early 1760s, corresponds to the organised revival of the French Protestant Church through clandestine assemblies and synods and the gradual decline of state persecution; and the third phase, from the early 1760s to the French Revolution, a return to a de facto religious tolerance.
This paper surveys the plight of French Protestants from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to the French Revolution. It nuances the grand narrative of a steady path towards religious toleration by highlighting regional disparities and integrating foreign – mostly Dutch – sources. It argues overall that, despite the death of Louis XIV in 1715 and the role of the Calas affair in changing public opinion, anti-Calvinist sentiments and discriminations remained vivid in southern France until the French Revolution.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Evangelicalism, 2022

This chapter explores the spread of evangelicalism in continental Europe and the British Empire a... more This chapter explores the spread of evangelicalism in continental Europe and the British Empire against the backdrop of the rise of capitalism in the eighteenth century. Starting from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, it briefly surveys different attitudes to religious tolerance across northern Europe to highlight the often- overlooked contribution of Huguenot, millenarian, and commercial networks to the emergence of evangelicalism. All of these groups either influenced early evangelicals theologically or supported their missions logistically and financially. Accordingly, this chapter surveys the economic foundations and teachings of Halle Pietists, the Moravians, and Methodists, as well as how their religious discourses evolved over the eighteenth century to adapt to the rise of capitalism. Overall it is argued that, although early evangelicals shared millenarian beliefs and experimented communal lifestyles, they rapidly reinvented themselves to become economically and theologically competitive on the religious marketplace. The support of wealthy bankers and merchants proved essential in this process and suggests that eighteenth-century capitalists helped finance early evangelicalism.

French History, 2022

Andrews in 2018. I would like to thank the reviewers for their insightful comments. I am grateful... more Andrews in 2018. I would like to thank the reviewers for their insightful comments. I am grateful to Jeroen Duindam, Michiel van Groesen, David van der Linden and David Thompson for their feedback on earlier drafts of this article. 1 A. Furetière, Dictionnaire universel (The Hague, 1690), iii. 722. All translations are mine, unless otherwise indicated.

Early Modern Prophecies in Transnational, National and Regional Contexts (vol. 1), 2020

This chapter explores the oral prophetic culture of several French Protestant movements that emer... more This chapter explores the oral prophetic culture of several French Protestant movements that emerged in south-eastern France in the aftermath of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. While Huguenots largely dismissed beliefs in prophecy and miracles as “superstitious” and “popish”, intensifying persecution in the 1680s led many to believe that they were living in the end times. Charismatic lay preachers replaced their pastors who had fled abroad and several generations of prophets survived underground in the remote mountains of Languedoc and Dauphiné over the eighteenth century. Their predictions of the relief of the ‘True’ --Protestant-- Church and the fall of Rome circulated in manuscript form and some were even published abroad. This chapter therefore sheds lights on the oral prophetic culture of the clandestine Huguenot community, starting with Isabeau Vincent and the “petits prophètes” of Dauphiné, whose prophecies circulated as far as New England; the French Quaker Daniel Raoux; the Camisards in the Cévennes; Isaac Elzière and the New Zionists; and the Huguenot minister Paul Rabaut. Considering these against the backdrop of other prophetic movements, it argues that the French eighteenth century was prophetic.

LES LUMIÈRES DE L'OMBRE : LIBRES PENSEURS, HÉRÉTIQUES, ESPIONS – Exploring the Early Modern Underground: Freethinkers, Heretics, Spies, 2020

Radicalism and Dissent in the World of Protestant Reform, Mar 2017

This essay reappraises the origins of French Quakerism based on new archival research conducted o... more This essay reappraises the origins of French Quakerism based on new archival research conducted on both sides of the Channel. It identifies 34 Quaker missionaries in 17th- and early 18C France, sheds new light on the French reception of Quakerism and suggests possible connections with non-violent, charismatic movements in Languedoc.

History of European Ideas, 2017

Freedom of religion generally resonates in the collective mind as a prized legacy of the European... more Freedom of religion generally resonates in the collective mind as a prized legacy of the European Enlightenment alongside most individual liberties and modern values. This assumption, however, is flawed as it tends to downplay centuries of religious pluralism and cohabitation. Tolerance, in other words, was a practice long before it became a theory. This article considers tolerance not as an idea, but as a religious belief and a practice in the early Enlightenment. Drawing from rare manuscript sources scattered over several countries, it argues that tolerance was a grassroots Christian belief primarily promoted by those who needed it the most: persecuted radical dissenters. It shows how the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 sparked a tolerationist spur in Protestant countries, ‘refuges’ that often offered only a limited level of freedom. By contrast, more radical forms of tolerance existed among underground millenarians and ecumenical societies of this period. These refuges and milieus made a significant contribution to the Enlightenment debate on tolerance and deserve to be acknowledged for it.

in Ariel Hessayon (ed.), Jane Lead and her Transnational Legacy, chapter 10 (pp. 213-239), Jun 2016

This essay examines the state of the Philadelphian Society in the aftermath of Jane Lead’s death ... more This essay examines the state of the Philadelphian Society in the aftermath of Jane Lead’s death in 1704. It challenges the centrality of her matriarchal authority and portrays her instead as a controversial, divisive figure among the Philadelphians, whose Society had already collapsed by the time of her death. It shows how the arrival of the Camisards in London in 1706 gave the Philadelphian Society a second life, as both movements merged into the ‘French Prophets’ the following year in celebration of the Union Act. Yet if the Prophets became notorious for their spiritual performances, it is argued that this owed more to the Philadelphians’ influence among them than to their actual French followers. Overall, this essay concludes that the Philadelphians proved far more radical than hitherto acknowledged and that Lead’s English legacy was almost non-existent.
This essay also contains a list of 70 Philadelphians together with their occupations in appendix.

Louis XIV Outside In: Images of the Sun King Beyond France (pp. 209-228), Nov 2015

Gerd Schwerhoff and Eric Piltz (eds), Gottlosigkeit und Eigensinn: Religiöse Devianz im konfessionellen Zeitalter (Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, Beiheft 51), pp. 413-433

Kriminelle - Freidenker - Alchemisten. Räume des Untergrunds in der Frühen Neuzeit (Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böhlau- Verlag), pp. 99-117, 2014

The Huguenots: France, Exile and Diaspora (Sussex Academic Press), pp. 125-133., 2013

French Studies Bulletin, 2011

Histoire de la Folie II, 2009

La Réforme protestante marqua l'apparition d'une conception personnelle de la foi, qui chez les p... more La Réforme protestante marqua l'apparition d'une conception personnelle de la foi, qui chez les plus dévots pouvait aller jusqu'à la folie. Luther désignait lui-même cet enthousiasme par le mot « schwärmer » en raison de l'effervescence fanatique des factions radicales, qu'il jugeait pareille à un bourdonnement d'abeilles. 1 Le terme « enthousiasme » entra également dans la langue française dès le XVI e siècle pour dénoncer la physicalité de ce fanatisme. Du grec « entheos », qui signifie « animé d'un transport divin », l'enthousiasme se caractérisait généralement par des états de transe et de violentes convulsions, au cours d'inspirations prétendument divines. Ce n'est que vers la fin du XVII e siècle qu'il revêtit une double signification, comme l'abbé Furetière le définit: ENTOUSIASME : Fureur prophétique ou poëtique qui transporte l'esprit, & qui luy fait dire des choses surprenantes & extraordinaires. 2 Voltaire confirma plus tard cette distinction entre inspiration artistique, donc créative, et le fanatisme destructeur de la religion en ces termes: L'enthousiasme est précisément comme le vin: il peut exciter tant de tumulte dans les vaisseaux sanguins, et de si violentes vibrations dans les nerfs, que la raison en est tout à fait détruite. Il peut ne causer que de légères secousses, qui ne fassent que donner au cerveau un peu plus d'activité: c'est ce qui arrive dans les grands mouvements d'éloquence, et surtout dans la poésie sublime. L'enthousiasme raisonnable est le partage des grands poètes. 3 C'est précisément de sa forme irrationnelle dont il est ici question, à propos de laquelle Voltaire s'interrogea: Les Grecs inventèrent-ils ce mot pour exprimer les secousses qu'on éprouve dans les nerfs, la dilatation et le resserrement des intestins, les violentes contractions du coeur, le cours précipité de ces esprits de feu qui montent des entrailles au cerveau quand on est vivement affecté? 4 Il faut ainsi se figurer l'enthousiasme comme un fanatisme du corps tout autant que de l'esprit. Le philosophe huguenot Pierre Bayle considérait d'ailleurs ces agitations comme des composantes essentielles de l'enthousiasme: « Les fanatiques qui n'ont ni convulsions, ni extases prophétiques, sont les plus suspects de fourberies. » 5 1 Michael Heyd, Be Sober and Reasonable: The Critique of Enthusiasm in seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, New York: E.

Oxford Bibliographies, 2019

The Shakers, officially known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, ar... more The Shakers, officially known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, are a millenarian religious movement still active today in the United States, whose roots can be traced back to the English evangelical Awakening. According to their oral history, Shakerism started when two Quaker tailors from Manchester, James and Jane Wardley, began their own religious society in Bolton in 1747. Because of their charismatic worship, these enthusiasts became known locally as the “Shaking Quakers.” By their own account, the Shakers were an offshoot of both the Quakers and the Camisards, or French Prophets, who had arrived in England from France in 1706, even though no hard evidence exists of any direct link with the latter. In 1758, the Wardleys welcomed along their followers the young Ann Lee, who soon rose to prominence within the group as “Mother Ann.” Lee married Abraham Stanley in 1761 and all four of their offspring died in infancy. She became convinced as a result that marriage and sexual intercourse were intrinsically sinful, paving the way for the Shakers’ belief in celibacy. Increasing persecution forced the Shakers to leave England for America in 1774. Lee and her followers settled in Watervliet, New York, and other communities were rapidly established in New England. Early believers in pacificism, the Shakers remained neutral during the American Revolution. In the early 19th century, they sent missionaries across the Appalachians and founded important communities in Kentucky and Ohio. Their movement peaked in the mid-1800s, with an estimated 5,000 followers nationwide, but it declined sharply after the American Civil War. Most of their villages died out in the 20th century. The Shakers are generally known to the wider public for their celibate and communal lifestyle, but they are celebrated today mainly for the quality and distinctive, yet simple design of their furniture. Sabbathday Lake, Maine, remains the last active Shaker community today, with only two members left.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Sep 2018

Whitrow, Abraham (fl. 1689Abraham (fl. -1714, self-styled prophet, is of obscure origins; his fat... more Whitrow, Abraham (fl. 1689Abraham (fl. -1714, self-styled prophet, is of obscure origins; his father was a merchant who died in military service and his grandfather was a clergyman, resident near Totnes, Devon. He received a minimal education and, barely literate, trained first as a mechanic and then as a wool-comber with his uncle. Having enlisted in William III's army in Ireland, he served under a relative as a cadet and allegedly fought in all of the army's battles and sieges. With the war's conclusion in 1691 he returned to woolcombing and, on 27 July of the following year, at St George the Martyr, Southwark, Surrey, he married Mary Strutton; the couple later had a daughter, Deborah.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2018

"Je chante donc je suis": an Anthology of French and Francophone singers, from Abd al Malik to Zazie, 2017

"Je chante donc je suis": an Anthology of French and Francophone singers, from Abd al Malik to Zazie, 2017

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2016

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2016

This postdoctoral project explores the inner workings of the diplomatic and prophetic networks of... more This postdoctoral project explores the inner workings of the diplomatic and prophetic networks of the Camisard Prophets in the great Huguenot diaspora that followed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. It follows their prophetic missions across Europe to study their interactions with local millenarian communities, as they sought to reconcile Judaeo-Christian denominations into a universal Church ahead of Christ's Second Coming. My research suggests that the Camisards stood at the heart of a powerful millenarian network involving at least the Philadelphian Society, Quakers, Scottish Quietists, Irish Baptists, Dutch Bourignonists, German and Swiss Pietists, and Moravians, with further ramifications in Silesia, Hungary, Sweden and colonial America. Drawing upon a wide range of primary sources in five languages and from eight countries, this project retraces the Camisards' exile from France to England and the formation of their international network in an attempt to track the clandestine circulation of ideas and beliefs across national, religious and linguistic borders in the Enlightenment.

The Camisards: Rebel Prophets of Languedoc

Interview about my current research project and recent discoveries: https://t.co/iDtEuriFqI

Ace Cultural Tours newsletter, May 2015

The Cévennes mountains in Languedoc is one of the most remote parts of France -rugged and beautif... more The Cévennes mountains in Languedoc is one of the most remote parts of France -rugged and beautiful, yet little visited. The area has also been the backdrop to some of the most significant events of French -and European -history. On this late summer tour with historian Dr Lionel Laborie, we shall immerse ourselves in this breathtaking landscape whilst exploring France's rich religious past.

IKGF Newsletter (pp. 20-21), Jan 2015

Our tour will begin with visits to Orange and Crest, before we head deep into the breathtaking sc... more Our tour will begin with visits to Orange and Crest, before we head deep into the breathtaking scenery of the Cévennes National Park to discover the important sites and battlefields at the heart of the Camisard revolt. Our journey culminates as we join thousands of others for the atmospheric Assemblée du Désert, the annual gathering marking the long years during which Protestantism was illegal in France yet survived in clandestine assemblies.

We begin our tour with four nights in historic Orange, before moving to spend three nights at a hotel in the beautiful Cévennes National Park. Participants should be comfortable walking over sometimes rugged terrain and a good level of fitness is required for this tour.

www.theconversation.com, Jul 3, 2014

Wesley and Methodist Studies, 2017

Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 471-472, Sep 2015

The Seventeenth Century, 29/4, pp. 433-435, Dec 2, 2014

Archives (forthcoming, 2015)

Church History, vol. 82, no. 2, pp. 456-457., Jun 2013

The Seventeenth Century 28, no. 2, pp. 242-243, Jun 14, 2013

This edited collection offers a much needed platform of reflexion on the place of ideology in ear... more This edited collection offers a much needed platform of reflexion on the place of ideology in early modern foreign policy. Building upon recent historiographical developments, it challenges the hitherto dominant view that post-Westphalian politics was not only secularised, but also characterised by its pragmatism and opportunism between the age of religious warfare and the revolutionary period. Its twelve chapters offer an excellent comparative approach to the international politics of the period and reveal the importance of political, economic and religious ideologies in the decision-making process of its rulers.

Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 311-312, 2013

Enlightenment & Dissent 27, 196-200, 2011

Sixteenth Century Journal XLII, no. 4 (2011), pp. 1257-1258, 2011

The Reformation dramatically changed Europe’s religious and political landscapes within a few dec... more The Reformation dramatically changed Europe’s religious and political landscapes within a few decades. The Protestant emphasis on translating the Scriptures into the vernacular and the developments of the printing press rapidly gave increased visibility to the most obscure parts of the Bible. Similarly, Spanish and Italian mystics promoted a spiritual regeneration of the Catholic Church during the Counter-Reformation. Prophecies, whether of biblical, ancient or popular origin, as well as their interpretations gradually began reaching a wider audience, sparking controversies throughout all levels of society across Europe. In recent years, new research has eroded the long standing historiographical consensus of an increasing secularisation accelerated by the Enlightenment, which allegedly cast away beliefs in prophecies and miracles as outmoded. The multiplication of case studies on millenarian movements suggests a radically different picture, yet many questions remain. How did prophecies evolve with the politico-religious conjunctions of their time? Who read them? How seriously were they taken?

Bodies in Early Modern Religious Dissent: Naked, Veiled – Vilified, Worshiped

The Symposium "The Protestant Reformation and its Radical Critique" will focus on the radical cur... more The Symposium "The Protestant Reformation and its Radical Critique" will focus on the radical currents within the evangelical movement. These currents have long been the focus of scholarly attention, but their study has been productively reconceptualized in recent decades under the impetus of gender history, global history and interest in issues of identification and belonging. Moreover, radicalism provides a forum where Anglophone, Dutch and German historiographies can be brought together in fruitful dialogue. The period we focus on extends from the radical early Reformation of the 1520s in Germany and Switzerland via Puritanism and later Anabaptism to the Pietist movement of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. A public lecture will address the construction of radicalism from the early modern period through to the 20th and 21st centuries. The symposium will be structured thematically around issues that cut across geographical and chronological boundaries, such as group formation, radicalism in politics, gender and family relations, missionary activity, radicalism across borders, and history writing. The global outreach of the Reformation (mainly to North America) will also receive special attention, as it is connected to a large extent to radical ideas within Protestantism.

Selon le célèbre texte de Saint Paul, les femmes n'ont pas droit à la parole dans l'Église. Il ex... more Selon le célèbre texte de Saint Paul, les femmes n'ont pas droit à la parole dans l'Église. Il existe pourtant une exception dans l'histoire du christianisme, à savoir lorsque Dieu se sert directement de la voix des femmes pour s'adresser à ses fidèles. Certaines femmes ont pu ainsi au fil des siècles s'affranchir des normes sociales en vigueur et transgresser les bornes de la théologie doctrinale. A ce titre, la prophétie féminine comme parole publique a souvent agité les autorités ecclésiastiques, qui soupçonnaient une origine démoniaque ou une simple supercherie. Ces débats illustrent les enjeux et limites du genre dans la transgression, et posent plus précisément la question de la femme comme instrument du divin. Deux études de cas exploreront de près ces mécanismes à travers les époques.

The long eighteenth century is generally associated with the Enlightenment, an intellectual golde... more The long eighteenth century is generally associated with the Enlightenment, an intellectual golden age widely regarded as the origin of our modernity. Accordingly, the advent of rationalism marked the intellectual emancipation from religious beliefs and popular superstitions. Yet the eighteenth century was also the age of evangelical missionaries and of the 'Great Awakening'. These "enthusiasts" were first and foremost driven by millenarian beliefs in Christ's imminent Second Coming. They endeavoured to reconcile Judaeo-Christian denominations into a Universal Church ahead of the millennium. As they challenged political and religious authorities, millenarians introduced new ideas -the abolition of primogeniture, of capital punishment and slavery, universal suffrage, female preaching, the education of women, freedom of conscience, philosemitism…-that were eventually integrated by the Enlightenment. Despite the large scale of their irenic and ecumenical activities, scholars of the eighteenth century have paid relatively little attention to the intellectual contribution of millenarianism. Recent studies have shown that enthusiasts not only pioneered modern ideas, but also that Enlightenment and millenarianism could sometimes even go hand-in-hand. For millenarians enjoyed a considerable audience of listeners and readers and, more importantly, the support of benefactors, promoters and protectors. Behind every itinerant prophet therefore lies a network of publishers, translators and financiers, including clergymen and magistrates and intellectuals, who enabled them to broadcast their predictions and conduct their missionary activities. This paper seeks to explore such connections by delving into the economics of millenarianism. Looking more specifically at the overlapping networks of the Quaker merchant Benjamin Furly in early eighteenth-century Rotterdam, it aims to shed new light on the circulation of apocalyptic literature and the financing of evangelical missions between Britain and the continent. In so doing, it aims to make a case for the emergence of an international spiritual market in the Age of Reason.

Medicine and religion were generally perceived as complementary in the seventeenth century. The p... more Medicine and religion were generally perceived as complementary in the seventeenth century. The physician healed the body and the clergyman the soul. Sometimes one encroached on the other's calling, but they usually managed to work hand in hand. Both, however, were challenged by a wave of medical and religious dissenters seeking to reform science and the Church over the seventeenth century. A particularly interesting example

Cours intensif d’été à l'Institut d’histoire de la Réformation (IHR), Genève.

Summer course 2017 at the Institut d'histoire de la Réformation (IHR), Geneva, Switzerland.

This course examines European attitudes to religious pluralism from the Reformation to the French... more This course examines European attitudes to religious pluralism from the Reformation to the French Revolution. The great schism within medieval Christendom opened the door to a proliferation of new denominations, and introduced new and often radical beliefs and ideas that we take for granted today. Religious cohabitation became one of the most debated issues of the early modern period and generally resulted in wars, persecution, peaceful coexistence or exile. Looking at both national case studies and controversies from France, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, the Dutch Republic, and transnational communities like the Huguenot diaspora, the course will take a comparative approach to religious tolerance to shed light on the origins of our multi-confessional societies.

Program(me) for the upcoming conference hosted by Renate Dürr and Lionel Laborie in Tübingen, Ger... more Program(me) for the upcoming conference hosted by Renate Dürr and Lionel Laborie in Tübingen, Germany on Feb. 9-10th.

His research concentrates on the cultural history of ideas and beliefs in early modern Europe, wi... more His research concentrates on the cultural history of ideas and beliefs in early modern Europe, with a particular interest in religious dissenters, transnational networks, radicalism and tolerance in the 'long' eighteenth century.