120 Ch. 3 • The Two Reformations
Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s Combat between Carnival and Lent (1559). Note the
contrast between the church on the left with the somewhat more pious-looking
people near it, and the drinking place on the other side of the square. Revelry
seems to be winning out.
others, returning them to the control of the clergy by imposing a religious
purpose that seemed to have been lost in all the fun. A dance known as the
“twirl” in southern France was banned in 1666 because boys tossed girls
into the air “in such an infamous manner that what shame obliges us to
hide most of all is uncovered naked to the eyes of those taking part and
those passing by.” Ecclesiastical and lay hierarchies, Catholic and Protes
tant, came to view popular festivity as immoral, or at least licentious. Com
bat between Carnival and Lent (1559), a painting by Pieter Brueghel the
Elder (see above), depicts Carnival as a fat man and Lent as a thin woman.
Under the twin assault of absolutism and ecclesiastic hierarchy, Lent won.
The clergy also began a long and often unsuccessful struggle for control
over lay confraternities, which had their origins in religious devotion, but
they now were often fiercely independent and more like festive clubs,
especially during Carnival. Carnival was largely eradicated in Protestant
countries, but it survived in some Catholic ones, although often much trans
formed.
Social and political elites contrasted the “civility” of their beliefs, con
duct, and manners with the “barbarity” or “savagery” of popular beliefs and
customs. Didactic literature stressing polite comportment and etiquette
became popular among people of wealth, further separating them from the