Faction in Geneva 157
chapter. These men, known as Articulants (or mockingly as Artichauts), were at a
disadvantage because the talks were conducted in German. Only their leader, Jean
Lullin, could understand German and then, it seems, only haltingly. The upshot
was that Bern was granted full jurisdiction of the contested villages, with Geneva
receiving only the usufruct. This poor deal provoked outrage in the city. Further
tortuous negotiations—the Basel mediators described the situation as a ‘labyrinth’—
dragged on (without Lullin!) for another five years until a settlement was reached
at Basel in 1544 (the ‘Départ de Bâle’).748
Although by popular mandate Reformed Protestantism was adopted as the
official religion of Geneva on 25 May 1536, the city was far from united.749 Within
three months Guillaume Farel had entlisted the young Jean Calvin to carry through
the work of Reform. The two men set about establishing a comprehensive system of
discipline, but there was little agreement over who should oversee that discipline.
As a result, the Genevan Reformation became, in Euan Cameron’s words, ‘the
plaything of internal Genevan politics’, in which the Guillermins (the followers of
Farel) were pitched against supporters of the commander of the civic militia, Jean
Philippe, the so-styled Articulants. The sources of discord were a nice blend of
religious rigorism and civic sensitivities, which need not be chronicled here. At the
council elections in 1538 Farel’s adherents were ousted from all public offices; in
April Farel and Calvin were dismissed from their posts by a vote of the Council of
Two Hundred and the citizens’ general assembly and chose to leave the city. In the
meantime the Articulants were given a free hand to settle outstanding issues with
Bern, which led to the farcical negotiations conducted by Lullin and his sidekicks
already described.750 Calvin and Farel returned to Geneva in 1541 to resume the
work of creating a church now firmly in Calvin’s image, a vision which put him at
odds with the Erastian magistrates of Bern.751
748 Santschi, Crises et Révolutions, 29–30, 43–4, 46–9; Monter, Calvin’s Geneva, 67–70; Monter,
‘De l’évêché’, 137.
749 Monter, Calvin’s Geneva, 56; Monter, ‘De l’évêché’, 135.
750 Monter, Calvin’s Geneva, 66–8; Monter, ‘De l’évêché’, 137; EA IV, 1c, 1288 (no. 766)
(Dec. 1540).
751 On the divisions in Bern itself see Gordon, Swiss Reformation, 155–8, and Bruening, Calvinism’s
First Battleground, 81–2.