# The Consistory begins regular moral discipline over Geneva’s households Date: 1542 ## The fact From 1542 the Consistory created by the 1541 Ordinances sat as a regular moral court over Genevans, referring stubborn cases to the civic councils. It is one event. ## Context Edited consistory registers, pointed from AEG, and Cambridge studies independently describe the 1540s–50s discipline. This is accountability for coercion, not a later cartoon of unique cruelty. Servetus 1553 is a capital case stored separately. [John Calvin](/people/john-calvin)’s documented role is bounded by other offices and collaborators named in the sources below. Sharing a field with them is not a reason to drop a documented act, and it is not a reason to assign later consequences done in the name after death. Conventional years are 1509–1564. Surviving public files are later museum pages, consistory editions, Meeter Center collections, and encyclopedias. Calvin did not typeset those later pages. Named person as heading of the dated public instrument. Later editors, museums, printers, or offices share publication. Complex where later carriers are the surviving public file. ## Evidence and sources Geneva’s archives portal and the Cambridge Companion independently describe consistory discipline from 1542. Official or archival record: Archives d’État de Genève (https://www.ge.ch/organisation/archives-etat-geneve; République et Canton de Genève). ## Significance Polarisation path via moral policing. High confidence on the practice; medium on unique case counts not in these two records. ## What is established and what is not Established: the Consistory operated from 1542. Not established: a unique modern privacy series from those minutes. What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions. The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit. Established here: a sourced, dated public instrument with a named contribution by John Calvin. They are not a public rating. The driver `political-polarization` is attached because the mechanism named in Significance follows from this instrument, not because a standing list of welfare headings needed another tick. John Calvin did not file a later UNESCO form, a later Loeb colophon, or a later museum label as a personal act. A portrait or conventional bust is not this mechanism. Allegation, reconstruction, and established occurrence stay distinct. Minutes are not a 1553 stake. Keep Servetus on 27 October. Keep the carrier date of later English distinct from the received historical year stored in the date field. Do not read a later English edition as a recovered autograph of John Calvin. ## People - John Calvin: https://factrail.ai/people/john-calvin ## Drivers - Political Polarization: https://factrail.ai/drivers/political-polarization ## Sources - https://doi.org/10.1017/ccol0521816475 - https://www.ge.ch/organisation/archives-etat-geneve ## Methodology https://factrail.ai/methodology Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/jc-consistory-discipline