Continuing the Servetus Case: Further Trials

Calvin’s difficulties in dealing with the Servetus case are well-known: not only the reformer was put in a delicate position when facing his opponent, but during the ensuing debate on whether the civil Magistrate has the duty to punish heresy by death, he was called out as a “murderer” by Castellio and others. Marianne Carbonnier-Burkhard (2007) has thus argued that there was not only one, but two trials focused on Geneva: Servetus’s trial and Calvin’s trial.
This paper will examine the series of trials held with pen and paper beyond the burning of Servetus. Before us will appear three convicts: Servetus, whose trial kept going postmortem; Calvin; and finally, the clementes, meaning, those who advocate for leniency, among which the most prominent figure is Castellio. A close reading of the continuations of the Servetus case will allow us to rethink its chronology in the eyes of its contemporaries: did Servetus’s proceedings end with the scattering of his ashes? how did Castellio aimed at reverting the codes of the legal procedures against Calvin? and what was Beza’s and Calvin’s approach in dealing with the advocates of Servetus as they could not put them on trial in person?