Au nom de la farine, de l’eau et du sel Le cas Alexander Agnew

The author republishes a legal report which appeared in 1656 concerning the trial and execution of Agnew, a pauper whose “blasphemies” did not betray any radical sectarian engagement, but rather a total lack of religious belief founded on his impoverished and often famished condition. The three ingredients necessary for making galettes were the only trinity he confessed to. The author evokes these parallels and concludes that the history and anthropology of the irreligion of the subaltern classes largely remains to be written.