Marguerite D Angoulême and the French Lutherans

Abstract

"Before John Calvin came on the scene of action, there existed a French movement of Evangelicals whose efforts coincided with the developments in Wittenberg. Before Luther's attack on Indulgences, a Paris professor, Lefitvre d'Etaples, wrote a commentary on Romans and inspired a "Fabrisian" movement which found a concrete manifestation in the Chacle at Meaux, where Bishop G. Briqonnet attempted a reform of the clergy. Luther's writings began to be known and read in France shortly after they appeared in Germany. Marguerite of Alen~on (later of Navarre), sister of Francis I, encouraged every intellectual and spiritual movement. She wrote hymns, tracts and plays which have a Lutheran accent-yet she was not a Lutheran in the confessional sense"