The Fourteen

Working on the final cleanup of ‘The Fourteen – Ancestors Book 5’. Targeting to have it available by the end of the month.   🤞

Pierre ‘Le Fils’ Charron was seventeen when his father died from a head wound inflicted upon him by the parish priest, Dominick Hugeot. He was seventeen when he was acclaimed to the office of Reeve of his village of Meaux, the position held by his father and his father before him.  He was seventeen when he met the humanist scholar and teacher Jacques Lefevre, who now returned to Meaux to lead a group of Catholic scholars, known as The Cenacle, in their own reform in opposition to the rising Protestant Reformation taking hold in Europe.

At the same time a movement away from the Catholic church had begun in Meaux, under the leadership of Estienne Mangin and Pierre LeClerc. Their followers were known as the Gospellers. In the beginning the Catholics and Gospellers were friendly toward each other but over time their views grew too far apart and conflict arose. Those who were, in the beginning, friends with The Cenacle became adversaries and ultimately enemies, leading to the tragic events of The Fourteen of Meaux. Le Fils and his son Gilles, became involved in a new church, regarded by the King as a radical terrorist group practicing in extreme heresy. Persecution ensued, and many were rounded up and put on trial. Some set for torture and execution, some given lesser penalties such as flogging, imprisonment and banishment. The Charron’s escaped capture through a serendipitous event and timing but were pursued by the evil inquisitor, Sébastien Michaëlis.

On the 7th of October 1546, Gilles Charron witnessed the burning of Estienne Mangin, Pierre LeClerc and twelve others, found guilty of heresy for their actions in the formation of the earliest Reformed Church within France.