The Méreau Communion Tokens of the French Huguenots

The Méreau Communion Token of the French Huguenots

Pierre H. Nortje

Introduction

Communion tokens were issued to members of the Reformed churches in the olden days to grant them entrance to church communions (a.k.a. the Lord's Supper) where wine and bread were offered as a symbol of Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross.

According to "Christian Study Library", the tokens were handed out by parish elders either at the preparatory service or in parish visitation in the days immediately before communion. “Admission to the Lord’s Table was thereby simply controlled: no token, no communion.” At the communion, the tokens would be handed back to the church, so they were not kept permanently by the recipients.

It is not known when the practice of communion tokens first started, but it is thought that at the Council of Geneva in January 1560, John Calvin, the great reformer, proposed the adoption of tokens, stating that ‘to prevent the profanation of the table it would be well if each took lead tokens for each of the eligible of their household and further that ‘strangers giving witness of their faith could take these, but those not provided with tokens would not be admitted to the table’.

Calvin barring the Libertines from the Lord’s Table as “the despisers of sacred mysteries”

(Source: The Genevan Foundation).

Despite Calvin’s plea, tokens were not used in Geneva till 1605, many years after his death. They were also used in other European countries like France until 1821 and for a time in Belgium. However, the greatest use was to be in the churches of Scotland. By the 1800s, the use of metallic tokens was in decline and was eventually replaced with communion cards.

However, communion tokens also had other uses as for example, they were withheld from a parishioner under censure for some misdemeanour as a disciplinary tool until the church was convinced that person had mended his/her ways.

Secondly, as in the case of the persecuted Protestants in France during the 17th century, they were used like a secret password (or passport) to exclude infiltrators who may have wished to spy on the congregation.

South African Communion Tokens

South African Numismatists like Dr. G.P. Theron (1976), Brian Hern (2009) and Dr Morgan Carroll & Allyn Jacobs (2021) list some communion tokens that were in use locally during the 1800s. The following are a few examples: -

Pictures from left to right: - Apostolic Union (undated), Cape Town 1829, Free Church of South Africa 1846, and Presbyterian Church of Port Elizabeth 1862.

(Source MTB South Africa Tokens).

In a booklet entitled From Barter to Barclays (1968:25) by Eric Rosenthal, a picture was published of a rectangular cardboard “Good For” to the value of 2/6 (half-crown) that was issued as church money (KERKGELD) at Potchefstroom. It probably dates from the second half of the 19th century.

The French Huguenots

In 1685, the Edict of Nantes, the law that guaranteed religious freedom in France, was revoked by King Louis XIV.

Followers of the Protestant faith were persecuted by the Catholic supporters of the French King. These Protestants fled France to various countries, including the Netherlands, England, America and also South Africa. The refugees became known as the French Huguenots. The largest number of Huguenot refugees who fled to the Cape of Good Hope arrived during 1688 - 1689.

Even before this large-scale emigration, individual Huguenot refugees such as Francois Villion (1671) and the brothers François and Guillaume du Toit (1686) had settled at the Cape of Good Hope. By 1692, a total of 201 French Huguenots were living at the Cape. Most of them settled around the present-day town of Franschoek, about 70 km from Cape Town, where many of the farms still bear their original French names.

The Huguenot Memorial Monument & Museum in Franschoek

The building of the monument was completed in 1945 and inaugurated by Dr. A.J. van der Merwe on 17 April 1948. The museum opened in 1968 and its annexe in 1976.

Source: The Huguenot Society of South Africa

In 1982, the Departure of Nature and Environmental Conservation of the old Cape Provincial Administration published a booklet Museums of the Cape. In the section covering the Huguenot Museum, a picture is shown of a copy of the Edict of Nantes, a large seal or medal, and four “…metal badges worn by Protestants during the persecution in France to receive communion.”

Recently, Derick Rabe, the webmaster of the Western Cape Numismatic Society, visited the museum and took some pictures of the display of tokens. Unfortunately, it is difficult to take pictures through the glass display case, but it is clear that on the original picture shown above, only 4 tokens are shown (the bigger metallic item in the picture is a seal and not a token), but on the recently taken picture below, a fifth is displayed.

The first French Congregation

Pierre Simond, a Huguenot minister, accompanied the Huguenots to the Cape on 29 August 1688, by order of the Heeren XVII (Lords Seventeen) of the Dutch East India Company (VOC).

According to Vos (2009:47), Simond qualified as a minister in the Calvinistic Reformed Church and served since 1678 in various congregations in France (including at Montjoux and Embrun according to sahistory.org.za) before being exiled to the Netherlands in early 1685. At the coastal town of Zierikzee in Zeeland, he pastured the Walloon church from February 1686, where he encountered many French refugees destined for the Cape and other parts of the world.

Simond was stationed at Drakenstein, where he was given two farms by the Dutch East India Company. He led the deputation to Governor Simon van der Stel on 20 November 1689 to request their own congregation. According to Graham Botha (The French Refugees at the Cape, page 29), on the 30th of December 1691, the first Consistory of the French congregation was constituted. Three elders were appointed being Claude Marais, Louis Cordier and Louis de Berault, who was the minister’s brother-in-law. The deacons were Abraham de Villiers, Pierre Meyer, Pierre Beneset and Pierre Rousseau.

According to Vos, Simond pastored both the Drakenstein and Stellenbosch congregations, where he preached alternatively every 14 days. Communion was kept four times a year in January, April, August and December.

Simon’s congregation was granted permission to establish its own church building, which was built in 1694 near the farm Babylonstoren in Simondium. Botha notes that the building was very primitive and more like a barn than a church, where services were held up to 1713. The building became ruinous and was eventually broken down, and a new church was built in Paarl.

(In 1700, Simond applied for permission to return to the Netherlands, and when he left in April 1702, he was not succeeded by another French-speaking minister.)

The use of the Méreau communion token at the Cape

The French Huguenots suffered no religious persecution at the Cape, so if the tokens were used locally, they would have served their purpose only as communion tokens (and not as secret passes to exclude spies and infiltrators). If they were indeed used, they would most probably be one of the first recorded tokens in South Africa.

If any of the tokens were brought over by the Huguenots, it was probably by Minister Pierre Simond, who either got them in France or the Netherlands. We know that Simond preached in one of the Walloon churches in the Netherlands (in Zierikzee), and there is evidence, according to James Hastings (1929:359), that communion tokens were already in use since 1586 at the Walloon church in Amsterdam.

However, we know the provenance of at least 4 of the 5 tokens kept by the Franschoek Museum and none of them were brought over by the Huguenots and certainly not used by them. According to Bulletin 7 (1969) of the Huguenot Society of South Africa, four of the tokens were a gift from Monsieur J. Allier, President of Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français, who owned a noted collection of Méreau tokens.

They are described as follows: -

Méreau of the Church of Chenay (Poitou) 18th Century.
Méreau of the Church of Saint Maixent (Poitou) 18th Century
Méreau of the Church of Agenais 16th Century.
Méreau of the Church of La Tremblade (Saintonge) 16th Century

Two pictures are shown in the bulletin, the first of the obverse of the Church of Agenais showing Christ as a shepherd tending his flock (picture below left). The second (picture below right) shows on the reverse of the méreau an open Bible surmounted by a radiant sun with the quotation: "Have no fear, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (St Luke XII, 32).

The four tokens described above are without doubt those that are pictured in the Cape Provincial Administration booklet Museums of the Cape of 1982 shown below.

If one looks at the picture recently taken of the 5 tokens currently on display at the museum, it is clear that there are 2 smaller and 3 larger tokens, so the 5th one, acquired after 1982, must be one of the bigger ones.

The provenance of the fifth token on display is confusing.

The author has received a copy of a letter from the secretary of the Huguenot Society as shown below: -

What we can deduce from the letter is that the Huguenot Museum at one stage loaned one méreau to the Boschendal Manor House (probably to be displayed there), and the letter confirms that the item was returned to the Huguenot Museum on 28/8/2016. So, this is not necessarily the 5th token we are looking for.

During the Huguenot festival in 1988, according to Bulletin 28 (1990 -1991) of the Huguenot Society, Monsieur Michel Rateau, chairperson of the Cercle d’Histoire et de Genealogie des Huguenots du Perigord, brought a méreau to South Africa. He granted permission for silver copies of it to be struck, and a small number were later made, and members of the Huguenot society could order one for R25 from Mr. N. Malherbe from Stellenbosch.

As a matter of interest, the Huguenot Society of Manakin, Virginia, in the USA, are selling copies in pewter and brass for a $10 donation. An example is shown below.

According to an undated paper by Angus J. Sutherland entitled, The Communion Token: An Aid in Discipline, An Enticement for Growth …

”Communion Tokens are of two basic types: the European and the Scottish.

Among the European tokens, the major motif appears to be the Communion chalice. Scandinavian, German, and French tokens have this as a primary symbol.

There is a secondary motif among the French tokens, that of a shepherd and sheep. Dutch, German, and Scandinavian examples normally feature a Latin text, while the tokens of the Calvinist Protestant Churches of France feature primarily the French language. The texts in Latin are often ones that would be acceptable in both Roman and Protestant worship, such as “Signo calicis et crucis” (“a sign [or token] of the chalice and the cross”), presumably to prevent problems in an era of suspicion and persecution.

The tokens of France identified their congregation of origin with initials. For example, AP or EP often appear for Assemblée Protestante or Église Protestante, followed by the initials of the church itself.”

The five tokens in the Huguenot Museum in Franschoek are displayed in a permanently sealed glass case, and only one side of each token is visible. However, we believe the 3 larger tokens are of the “shepherd and sheep” type, whilst the two smaller ones are of the “Communion chalice” type. If indeed the case, the chalice must be shown on the other side of the two tokens of which the following pictures are the best we could get.

The one on the left shows the letters “C dot D” at the top and “CHE” in the middle. This token, we believe, is from the Church of Chenay (Poitou). The token on the right shows the initials “SM”, which we believe is from the Church of Saint Maixent. This token is also visible in the picture taken in 1982 and published in the Cape Provincial Administration book mentioned above. In that picture, the other smaller token shows a chalice and is thus the one from the Church of Chenay.

Pictured above, we found a similar token (but not exactly the same) of this Church on the website of "Musée protestant"

A picture of the méreau of the Church of Agenais was shown earlier in this paper, and especially the obverse looks “whitish”, so we believe it is this token showed in the museum publication of 1982 and the recent picture taken.

If our guess is correct, then the 4th token donated by Monsieur J. Allier is the one from the Church of La Tremblade. Pictured below, it must then be one of these two tokens shown on the left. The picture on the right is from the museum publication of 1982, and in our view, it is the same token as the one in the middle. The token on the left with the cross above the staff must therefore be the 5th token later acquired by the museum.

We were unable to establish its provenance, but as it is clearly not struck in silver, it could not be one of the replicas later made and sold to members of the society. However, we strongly suspect that it is the token brought to South Africa by Monsieur Michel Rateau in 1988 that was used to make the copies from.

As a matter of interest, the following four pictures are of the churches (we believe) that issued four of the five tokens named in this paper: from left to right Chenay (Poitou), Saint Maixent (Poitou), Agenais and La Tremblade (Saintonge).

On behalf of the Western Cape Numismatic Society, the author would like to thank Amelia Wolmarans, the secretary of the Huguenot Society of South Africa, and also Martina Strydom, site manager at the museum, for all the assistance they have given us.

Sources

Botha, Graham: The French Refugees at the Cape (1921)

Bryer, Lynne and Theron, Francois: The Huguenot Heritage (1987)

Bulletin 7 of the Huguenot Society of South Africa (1969)

Bulletin 28 of the Huguenot Society of South Africa (1990 -1991)

Burzinski, Lester: Communion Tokens of the World (1999)

Carroll, Dr. M. and Jacobs, A.: South Africa Tokens (2021)

Departure of Nature and Environmental Conservation: Museums of the Cape (1982)

Du Toit, S.J.: De geskidenis van ons land, in di taal van ons volk (1895)

Hastings, James: Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (1929)

Hern, Brian: Southern African Tokens (2009)

Sutherland, Angus J.: The Communion Token: An Aid in Discipline, an Enticement for Growth (undated)