Jeanne de Jussie
Poor Clares kept short hair cuts and went barefoot, wearing wool garments, a coat, a linen hood and headband, and a simple rope belt with four knots to represent the four vows.
Jeanne was elected abbess in 1548 after their move to the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Annecy in 1535 and passed the position to Claude de Pierrefleur after her death in 1561.
[2] Because of the constant pillaging by Reformers, at times only the church of the convent remained open in the city- eventually forced to close- and priests and monks no longer wore their habits.
Finally, in 1996 a complete version of the text was published by Helmut Feld as Petite chronique, the basis for an English translation by Carrie F.
Jeanne argued that “women were truer Catholics than men,” fighting for their chastity against heretics such as Marie Dentière, who would attempt to persuade the nuns to marry.
[7] Jeanne not only describes events such as battles from the point of view of women and wives but recounts the instances in which they were “severely beaten, tricked, and tortured” for their beliefs, especially by their husbands.
[6] Jeanne's account also presents the importance of “privacy and sexual segregation” in the convent, dramatizing the struggle as an assault on the nuns' right to their own space.
More generally, the text also offers a Catholic perspective on the Protestant Reformation in Geneva, normally linked to Jean Calvin's advances starting in 1536.
[8] Jeanne's writing, alternating between first- and second-person perspective, encapsulates Catholic sentiments of the time and provides an account of events between 1526–1535 as a witness and active defendant against the Reformation.
She employs derogatory terms for Protestants, indiscriminately calling them Lutherans, Mammelukes, and Huguenots with only Catholics as true Christians.
[4] She provides a short description of the Grand Turk as “a glutton and a disloyal, insatiable dog” for having an unlimited number of wives as representative of the Turkish culture and defends disrespectful acts of Catholics towards others such as pouring urine on a heretic's grave.
The Short Chronicle's narrative involves many historical figures and dates important to the Protestant Reformation in Geneva and the surrounding areas.
Finally, Farel arrived in Geneva with two associates (Pierre Robert Olivétan and Antoine Saunier), all tried by the Abbot of Bonmont[10] and thrown out of the city.
On 28 March 1533, a battle between Catholics and Protestants took place, described largely from the view of women and wives and finally resolved with the exchange of hostages and, later, peaceful laws.
[4] Four heretical preachers (Guillaume Farel, Pierre Viret, Antoine Froment, and Alexandre Canus) entered the city to preach and another battle almost occurred that December.
A woman named Hemme Faulson visited the convent to see her aunt (Claudine Lignotte) and her sister (Blaisine Varembert) but was turned away after attempting to convert them.
After Farel and Viret establish themselves in a nearby monastery, they often harass the convent and distribute heretical articles to advertise a disputation, which was promptly forbidden by the bishop.
After stopping in Saint-Julien and the Castle of La Perrière, where they resumed the cloistered life, the nuns finally arrived in Annecy, where they established themselves in the Monastery of the Holy Cross.
