L' effondrement de l’arène de Paris Garden en 1583

ou la difficile définition d’une hiérarchie des normes religieuses et politiques dans l’Angleterre réformée

Abstract

In a Sunday of January 1583, the Bear Garden, the London bear baiting arena, crashed down during a representation. Few days later, the godly preacher John Field published The Godly Exhortation, a sermon condemning the Sunday bear baitings as an infringement of the Sixth Commandment and of royal laws. This event is an occasion for the « godly people » to publicly challenge the royal Reformation. Field highlights the inefficiency of the Tudor monarch to enforce the sabbath. Thus, he contests their authority as the Supreme Head of the Church in matters of religion. According to Field, only the clergymen, as men chosen by God, have the right to define the religious norms in a truely reformed English society. The Godly Exhortation, influenced by the calvinism, affirms that the right religious norms edicted by the preachers-prophets can be understood only by the small community of chosen ones and can only be ignored by the reproved ones, the majority of the Londoners.