ABSTRACT
By 1582, Geneva was located at the heart of a Europe-wide network of Reformed churches that stretched from France to Hungary and from the Swiss cities to Scotland. The Genevan Academy had served as a well-known and highly respected center of Reformed higher education for over twenty years, attracting students from across Europe. The curriculum primarily included training in the humanities, in Greek and Hebrew, and in theology. Though the city’s leading Protestant reformer and French exile John Calvin had died in 1564, the city continued to follow key Reformed practices, including a strong oversight of inhabitants’ behavior. Genevans were expected to behave in ways that reflected their Christian commitments, since public sins in particular were held to damage the fabric of community and risked incurring God’s wrath. In this instance, the city council records of 1582 preserve the case of Alexander Bryson, a Scottish professor of philosophy, who had been appointed only two years earlier.
