ABSTRACT
Calvinism was, almost from the outset, an international form of Protestantism. Unlike the majority of fi rst generation religious reform movements of the sixteenth century, it did not enjoy a particular identifi cation with just one locality or cultural environment. Rather, from its base in Geneva, a religious impulse spread across the continent, uniting like-minded communities in a complex web of connections and associations. The leader of this movement in the early years personifi ed this internationalism: John Calvin was a religious exile from France when he was invited to Geneva in 1536.1 Over the next twenty years, with the support of men like Guillaume Farel, he sought to bring about the Reformation of that city, and to impose his will upon both church and state.2 This process was completed in 1555, when Calvin and his followers were able to exploit a slight change in the political mood to admit large numbers of French immigrants as bourgeois, thereby consolidating their electoral base and marginalising the anti-French faction, which had done most to resist his plans. Thereafter, Calvin’s power in Geneva was without challenge; he was, in effect, in charge of the entire city.
