Wednesday, April 16, 2025

It is the 16th of April 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

In an upcoming show of the Weekend Edition (in a few weeks) I have a program on “counterfactuals” that is the great “What if’s?” Of history. This is a well-trod path for historians, not only for the fun of it (think of the Man in the High Castle and what would happened if America had been on the losing side of WW2). These counterfactuals also highlight the variety of factors that led to the sometimes unimaginable and seemingly random events in history.

The Reformation is one such place ripe for “counterfactuals” (and we will get into the question of: what if Luther was executed? (as was most likely the case for guys like him). One Reformation “counterfactual” was given by one of its earliest historians and a reformer in his own right: Theodore Beza, the right-hand man to John Calvin. Beza, who cataloged some of the events and people of the early French and Swiss Reformation, wrote of one man, Louis Berquin, that he could have been “another Luther” had his friend King Francis I helped him in the way that Frederick the Wise had helped Luther and kept him from the executioner's block.

So who was this ‘almost another Luther’ Louis Berquin? Berquin, or “des Berquin,” was called such because he was the lord of the estate of Berquin in North West France. In 1512 Louis went to the university of Paris where he came into contact with Jacque Lefevre D’Etaples the famous humanist and Margaret of Valois, the sister of the soon-to-be King Francis.

Through D’Etaples, he came into contact with Desiderius Erasmus. It seems that Berquin was amongst the more conservative of the Reformers who sought unity and reform from within the church as the goal (and this will be discussed on the upcoming show- could it have gone slower- more conservative in that sense- and been more successful). While in the camp of Reformers like Erasmus Berquin, Martin Luther’s 1521 treatise on Monastic Vows was translated into French.

His translation of Luther was significant as there was only a general understanding of what constituted the new “heresy” but whatever it was, it was associated with Luther.

While Berquin was protected by his connections to Margaret and her brother King Francis, as the King’s fortunes suffered so too did his friends. In 1523 Berquin’s home was raided and he was found to have writings of Luther, Phillip Melanchthon and their radical friend Andreas Bodenstein Karlstadt. Berquin had translated some of their work and written treatises of his own.

He was tried and found guilty by the faculty at the Sorbonne and the French Parliament put him in jail. King Francis spoke up for his friend and Berquin was released, but his books were burned. In 1526 Berquin was arrested again and found with contraband writings by the German reformers. He was arrested and the King had him released again, but Parliament and the judges would not forget.

In 1528 the judges who were taken off the case of Berquin were able to have the case resumed. They found Berquin guilty, and he appealed, but they acted quickly to not only have his works burned but he was threatened with death if he did not recant them. Despite pleas from Margaret and from Berquin to the King the Parliament found him guilty on this, the 16th of April in 1529. His tongue was branded, and his works were burned (to this day, we have very little of what he actually wrote- burning texts could be an effective way of erasure so long as you did a thorough job). To ensure that the King did not intervene, Berquin was quickly put to death the following day- being a nobleman, he was strangled before he was burned, but nonetheless, he died one of the first deaths of the Reformation in France. And present there at the public execution of Louis Berquin? A 19-year-old John Calvin- soon to be the face of French exiles in the Swiss Reformation in Geneva. It was Louis de Berquin, born in 1490 and sentenced to death on this day in 1529.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary- a good word for Holy Week and this show in general from Hebrews 12:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 16th of April 2025 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man, speaking of Hebrews… he, brews… gillespie.coffee… yeah? He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.