Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts

Name: Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts
Start: 1539

Francis I imposes French in public acts: the vernacular supplants Latin in administration.

Meanwhile, elsewhere

Within twenty-five years of 1539 — the context national timelines leave out.

22 years earlier Luther’s 95 Theses Germany
same year School of Salamanca Spain
3 years earlier Lutheran Reformation Denmark
3 years earlier Calvin in Geneva Switzerland
5 years earlier Act of Supremacy United Kingdom
9 years later The New Testament in Finnish Finland
11 years later First books in Slovene Slovenia
13 years earlier Disaster of Mohács Hungary

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Which long period

Periods overlap: they are landmarks, not boxes.

Renaissance 1400 – 1600 Printing, humanism, and the opening of ocean routes.
Reformation and wars of religion 1517 – 1648 Christendom splits and Europe is redrawn.

Countries involved

France

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What was written of it

Before 1914, the earth belonged to all. Everyone went where they wished and stayed as long as they pleased. There were no permits and no authorisations.

Stefan Zweig 1942

The World of Yesterday. Memoirs of a European

Translated by the site, not by the author.