1410: Birth of Davin de Carcassonne, son of Vital and Astrugie de Carcassonne.
1453–54: Conversion to Christianity of Davin, under the name of Arnauton de Vélorgues, a grain, oil and wine merchant and Nostradamus’ paternal great-grandfather. His wife, Vengessonne, refuses to convert with him and dies in 1468, after he had renounced her. He remarries, to Marie, perhaps a new convert like him.
1456: 60 Jews massacred at Carpentras at the instigation of the notary Martini.
1459–60(?): Davin and Vengessonne's son Crescas de Carcassonne converts to Christianity and takes the name of Pierre de Nostredame. A grain merchant, he took up residence at Carpentras, and then at Malucène, having married Stella, the daughter of Isaac Crescas de Castello, from Sisteron, in 1448.
1463: Pierre de Nostredame renounces his second wife Benastruggie (‘born under the good star’), daughter of Josse Gassonet from Monteux. The latter had converted to Christianity at some currently unknown date and took the name of Ricau. Ricau's brother, Vidon Gassenet, also from Carpentras, converted to Christianity and also took the name of Pierre de Nostredame sometime around 1454–5.
8 December 1464: Pierre de Nostredame, Nostredamus’ paternal grandfather (but which Pierre?) marries Blanche de Sainte-Marie, from Aix-en-Provence, the daughter of Pierre de Sainte-Marie. Pierre was a physician and no doubt also an astrologer, a Hebrew and Greek scholar, who practised medicine in Arles until c.1469–71 and moved to Avignon in or before 1476. ‘Among [Nostradamus’ ancestors] Pierre de Nostredame, a famous and learned physician and gifted linguist, Michel's grandfather, would occupy an honorable rank, being appointed to the service of the Duke of Calabria, who retained his services for the rest of his days, as did Good King René thereafter. He chose for his blazon a broken wheel argent on a field of gules with the device: Soli Deo. And his descendants, both at Saint-Rémy and Salon, employed the same blazon from father to son until now’. There were numerous children from this marriage, including Jaume (Jacques), François, Pierre and Marguerite.
1470: The date when Nostradamus’ father, Jaume, was probably born.
c.1473: Death of Davin-Arnauton.
1481: Death of Charles III, Count of Provence. Provence is ceded to the King of France.
10 November 1483: Birth of Martin Luther.
1484: Death of Pierre de Sainte-Marie. Pogroms in Arles.
1485: Pogroms in Avignon and Cavaillon. Death of Pierre de Nostredame.
1495: Jaume de Nostredame, initially a cloth merchant and then a notary at Saint-Rémy, marries Renée (var: Reinière/Reybière), daughter of René de Saint-Rémy and Béatrice Tourrel, granddaughter of Jean de Saint-Rémy, physician and Keeper of the Keys in the town whose name he bears.
1498: Charles VIII expels the Jews from Provence.
23 May 1500: Louis XII confirms that expulsion.
14 December 1503: Birth of Michel de Nostredame (or Michaelis de Nostra Domina) in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. His brothers and sisters (including Hector, Bertrand, Louis, Pierre, Jean, Antoine and Delphine) would be born in the following 15 years.
10 July 1509: Birth of John Calvin.
1 January 1515: François I ascends the French throne.
31 October 1517: Luther posts his 95 theses against indulgences on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg.
15 June 1520: Luther condemned in the Papal Bull Exsurge Domine.
1521: Michel de Nostredame is received as Master of Arts at the University of Avignon and he begins his medical studies at Montpellier.
8 May 1521: Luther is placed under Imperial ban by the Diet of Worms.
1523–4(?): Nostradamus is received as batchelor of medicine ‘having spent most of my youth in pharmacy, learning how to recognize and study of simples in various lands and regions from 1521 to 1529, endlessly running to and fro to get to know and recognize the sources and origins of botanical and medicinal plants’. His period of wandering begins.
February 1524: Rumour of a forthcoming Great Flood spreads abroad in Paris and throughout the realm, resulting from a planetary convergence in Pisces.
1525: Outbreak of plague in Montpellier and Southern France.
17 April 1528: Execution of the Erasmian Louis de Berquin.
2[?] June: The mutilation of a statue of the Virgin in Paris.
23 October 1529: Nostradamus signs his name in the Liber procuratorum studiosorum at the University of Montpellier. He takes Antoine Romier as his patron.
1529–32: Nostradamus achieves his licentiate and then doctorate of medicine. This is the period when he probably undertakes the translation of Galen's Paraphrase at the instigation of Ménodote.
1530: François Rabelais enrols at the University of Montpellier.
1531: Publication of Marguerite of Navarre's Mirror of the Sinful Soul.
1532: François Rabelais’ Pantagruel published.
September 1532: Vaudois Synod at Chanforan.
1533: Nostradamus in Toulouse.
1534: Nostradamus establishes himself as physician at Port-Sainte-Marie, near Agen. ‘I practised medicine some time back … mostly in the Agenais, and in Agen itself’. Probable date of his first marriage, and of his contact with Jules César Scaliger.
17 October: The First Affair of the Placards, when a sacramentarian placard denouncing the ‘God of dough’ was posted up, including on the door of the royal chamber. It is followed in January 1535 by a Second Affair.
March 1536: Publication at Basel of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.
1537–8: Affair of the Erasmian physician(?) Philibert Sarrazin, Principal of the college in Agen, who was accused of expressing opinions against the ceremonial practices of the Church. In February 1538, the Inquisitor Rochetto arrives in Agen. Nostradamus is no doubt harassed because of his links with some dissidents. Probable date of the death of his first wife and their two children.
1539: Nostradamus is in Bordeaux: ‘In days gone by I practised in the city of Bordeaux, in Toulouse, Narbonne and Carcassonne’. His presence is attested in the Rhône valley (Vienne?). He spends a period wandering around Languedoc.
13 September 1541: Calvin returns to Geneva
20 November: The Genevan ‘Ordinances’, establishing the constitution of the church in Geneva are approved.
1541: First French edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion is published.
1544: Nostradamus practises in Marseille during an outbreak of plague, alongside Louis de Serres.
15 April–4 May 1545: Massacre of the Vaudois communities of the Lubéron by the troops of the sieur d’Oppède, king's lieutenant in Provence, and those of Paulin de la Garde.
1545–7: Draft of Nostradamus’ translation of the Orus Apollo, and the dedication of the manuscript to Jeanne d’Albret.
18 February 1546: Death of Luther.
30 May: Outbreak of plague in Aix-en-Provence. Nostradamus is retained by the town to minister to the population: ‘True it was, the year 1546, that I was elected and paid by the city of Aix-en-Provence, where the Senate and people appointed me to the preservation of the city, where the outbreak of a terrible and great plague began at the end of May and lasted throughout the following nine months.’
1546–7: Death of Jaume de Nostredame.
31 March 1547: Death of François I, and accession of Henri II.
April: Nostradamus intervenes in the battle against the plague at Lyon: ‘The incomparable city of Lyon had not long before been provided with a noble of unrivalled learning in the person of Phil. Sarracenus, one of my leading lights, and I, advanced in years, had set him up there; and then I heard that he had retired to Villefranche (‘illi nec invido’) but it seems to me that he should not have gone there because their dominion will hardly endure’.
8 October: Creation of a special tribunal with exclusive competence in matters of heresy at the Parlement of Paris, and known as the ‘Chambre Ardente’. Persecutions.
November: Nostradamus’ second mariage to Anne Ponsarde, widow, at Salon-de-Crau (now Salon-de-Provence).
1548–9: Various unspecified journeys of Nostradamus to Northern Italy, Savona, Genoa, and perhaps further afield.
1549: Publication of Jean Calvin's Traité ou advertisemment contre l’Astrologie.
1550: Probably the date for the publication of the first Prognostication (for 1550).
1551: Probably the date for the publication of the Prognostication (for 1551).
11 October 1551: The General Council of the Church approves a canon affirming the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine.
1552: Nostradamus publishes a first edition of the Vray et parfait embellissement de la face et la maniere de faire des confitures, later published under the title Excellent & moult utile opuscule à touts nécessaire …
1553: Birth of César de Nostredame, his first son.
November: Publication of his Prognostication for 1554.
c.1555: Ein erschrecklich und wunderbarlich zeychen, so am Sambstag für Judica den zehenden tag Martij zwischen siben und acht uhrn in der Stadt Schalon in Franckreych von vielen leuten gesehen worden … , Datum in franckreych zu Schalon en der Proventz 19 Martij 1554 … Michael De Nostre Dame, s.p.
1555: Prognostication nouvelle et prediction portenteuse pour l’an M.D.L.V. (Lyon: Jean Brotot) with a dedicatory epistle dated 27 January 1555 [1554 O.S.] to the provost of Cavaillon, Joseph des Panisses.
Excellent et moult utile opuscule à touts nécessaire, qui désirent avoir congnoissance de plusieurs exquises receptes, divisé en deux parties. La première partie traicte de diverses façons de Fardemens et senteurs pour illustrer et embellir la face. La seconde nous monstre la façon & manière, de faire Confitures de plusieurs sortes … Nouvellement composé par Maistre Michel de Nostredame, Docteur en Medicine de la ville de Salon de Craux en Provence, et de nouveau mis en lumière (Lyon: Antoine Volant, 1555).
[4 May]: Les Prophéties de M. Michel Nostradamus (Lyon: Macé Bonhomme). The dedicatory epistle to César is dated 1 March, and it is made up of 353 quatrains organized in four centuries. A further possible edition appeared in Avignon, printed by Pierre Roux, as Les merveilleuses predictions de M. Michel Nostradamus. Divisées en quatre Centuries. Esquelles se voit representé une partie de ce qui se passe en ce temps, tant en France, Espaigne, Angleterre, que d’autres parties du monde.
[May-July]: Nostradamus in Lyon
Summer [1556?]: Nostradamus at the French court. An embellished account of it is provided by César de Nostradame in L’histoire et chronique de Provence, par Cæsar de Nostradamus, gentilhomme provençal (Lyon, 1614) – ‘Meanwhile, no sooner had these Prophecies become known, even though they were written in obscure verses, and in a sybilline style (for such things should not be profaned by ordinary people) than word of his renown spread abroad, and he was regarded by everyone with more admiration than it is fitting for me to put to paper. I will say, without more ado, that the Queen [Catherine de Médicis], who had heard tell of him, immediately wrote letters expressly to Count Claude [de Tende, governor of Provence] to despatch this person to her since the king desired to see him. At which, at the command of His Majesty which the Governor, who liked and esteemed him had communicated to him, he made ready to set out from his house at the age of 53 on 14 July and arrived in due course at the gates of Paris on 15 August, on the Feast of the Assumption, where he found his way to lodge at the Sign of St Michael, which was also his name, and which was a good omen accomplished. Monseigneur the Constable [Anne de Montmorency] had wind of his arrival and did him the honours of lodging him at his own hôtel and presenting him to the King, who ordered that he reside at the Cardinal de Sens’ hôtel. There a sudden attack of gout detained him for ten or twelve days, during which time the king sent him a hundred gold écus in a velvet purse, and the Queen almost as much again. By which means, although he was scarce rid of that violent attack, by express command of the king he set out for Blois in order to meet the royal infants, which he did most happily. Concerning the honours, royal favours, jewels and magnificent presents which he received from Their Majesties, and the princes and other aristocrats at court, I hesitate to even mention them lest I be accused of vanity, fearing already to have said more than modesty demands’.
1556: Birth of César de Nostredame, his second son. Antoine Couillard published Les Prophéties du Seigneur du Pavillon lez Lorriz … (Paris: Antoine le Clerc and Jean Dallier, 1556).
1557: Présages merveilleux pour l’an 1557, whose dedicatory epistle to Henri II is dated 13 January 1557 (1556 O.S.). Pronostication nouvelle pour l’an mil cinq cens cinquante et huict (Lyon: Jean Brotot and Antoine Vollant). Almanach pour l’an 1557 (Paris: Jacques Kerver) with a dedication to Catherine de Médicis of 13 January 1557 (1556 O.S.). Paraphrase de C. Galen, sus l’exortation de Monodote, aux estudes des bonnes artz, mesmement Medicine: Traduict de latin en françoys, par Michel Nostradamus (Lyon: Antoine du Rosne, 1557) with a dedicatory epistle dated Salon, 17 February 1557, addressed to Paulin de la Garde. La première invective du seigneur Hercule le François contre Nostradamus [sic] traduite du latin (Lyon). Almanach pour l’an 1557. Composé par Maistre Michel Nostradamus, docteur en medecine de Salon de Craux en Provence … Contre ceulx qui tant de foys m’ont fait mort … . La Grand [sic] Pronostication nouvelle avec portenteuse prédiction, pour l’an 1557. Composée par Maistre Michel de Nostre Dame, Docteur en Medicine de Salon de Craux en Provence. Contre ceux qui tant de foys m’ont faict morts … (Paris: Jacques Kerver, 1557). Les Prophéties de M. Michel Nostradamus. Dont il en y [sic] à trois cents qui n’ont encores iamais esté imprimées (Lyon: Antoine du Rosne, 1557). Declaration des abus, ignorances et séditions de Michel Nostradamus … (Avignon: Pierre Roux and Jean Tramblay).
[4 September]: Discovery in Paris of a nocturnal assembly of Protestants at the rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques. 130 arrests, including noblewomen.
1558: Birth of Anne de Nostredame, his first daughter. La grand [sic] pronostication nouvelle avec la declaration ample de M.D.LIX., composée par Michel Nostradamus, avecques les figures de quatre temps sur les climats 47, 48, 49, et 50, dedicated to Guillaume de Guadagne. Alamanch pour l’an 1558. Pronostication nouvelle, pour l’an 1558. Composée par Maistre Michel Nostradamus, de Salon de Craux en Provence, docteur en medecine … (Paris: Guillaume le Noir). La premiere invective du seigneur Hercule le François, contre Monstradamus [sic] traduilte du latin, imprimé en même temps (Lyon: Michel Jouve and Paris: Simon Calvarin). Laurent Videl, Declaration des abus, ignorances et séditions de Michel Nostradamus, de Salon de Craux en Provence … (Avignon: Pierre Roux and Jean Tramblay). Le Monstre d’abus. Composé premièrement en latin par Maistre Jean de La Daguienière (Paris: Barbe Regnault). Les Significations de l’Eclipse, qui sera le 16 septembre 1559. Laquelle fera sa maligne extension exclusivement, jusques à l’an 1560 diligemment observées par Maistre Michel Nostradamus, docteur en médicine de Salon de Craux en Provence. Avec une sommaire response à ses détracteurs (Paris: Guillaume le Noir, 1558). Preceded by a dedicatory epistle to ‘Henry, Roy de France Second’. Les prophéties de M. Michel Nostradamus. Centuries VIII. IX. XC. Qui n’ont encore jamais esté imprimées.
[13–16 May]: 4,000 Huguenots assembly each evening to sing Psalms at the Pré-aux-Clercs in Paris.
1559: La grand [sic] pronostication nouvelle avecques la déclaration ample de 1559 … (Lyon: Jean Brotot).
[3 April]: Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis brings the war between France and Spain to a close, and marks the abandonment of France's claims in Italy.
[26 May]: Clandestine meeting of a synod of the French Reformed churches in Paris. It adopts a confession of faith and Genevan-style discipline.
[2 June]: The Edict of Rouen defines a hard line that royal officials must adopt in order to ensure the eradication of a new religion. All protestants are to be burned or expelled from the kingdom.
[10 June]: The king appears before the Parlement of Paris at a formal disciplinary session (en mercuriale). The councillor Anne Du Bourg publicly defends those who denounce corruption in Rome and seek a reform of the church, and is arrested, along with Louis Du Faur.
[10 July]: Death of Henri II, wounded in a tournament by Gabriel de Montgomery (30 June). François II ascends the throne. The Guises, uncles of Mary Stuart, the new king's wife, take over the government.
[August]: Murder of the Protestant Antoine de Mauvans at Draguignan.
[21 December]: Anne Du Bourg burned in Paris.
[23 December]: The Declaration of Villers-Cotterêts orders buildings that are used as places of Protestant assembly to be razed to the ground.
1560: Almanach pour l’an 1560, Composé par Maistre Michel Nostradamus, Docteur en Medicine de Salon de Craux, en Provence … (Paris: Guillaume le Noir), with a dedication to Claude Savoie, Comte de Tende, governor of Provence. La Grand’ Pronostication nouvelle pour l’an 1560 (Lyon: Jean Broto and Antoine Volant) – dedication ‘À Monseigneur de Savigni, Lieutenant général pour le Roy au pays du Lyonnais …’. Antoine Couillard, Les Contredits du Seigneuur du Pavillon lez Lorriz en Gastinois, aux faulses et abbusisves Propheties de Nostradamus et autres astrologues … (Paris: Charles l’Angelier). Almanach pour l’an 1561. Composé par Maistre Nostradamus, Docteur en Medicine, de Salon de Craux en Provence (Paris: Guillaume le Noir) – dedicated to Marguerite, duchess of Savoy. Almanach pour l’an 1561. Composé par Maistre Michel Nostradamus, Docteur en Medecine, de Salon de Craux, en Provence (Paris: Barbe Regnault) – dedication ‘A très illustre, héroïque, & Magnanime Seigneur, Monseigneur le Duc d’Operta, grand Gouverneur de la Mer de Levant’.
[1 February]: Secret meeting held at Nantes to finalize a plan to rescue François II from the dominance of the Guises, directed by Gabriel de La Renaudie, perhaps acting for the prince of Condé.
[12 February]: Paulon de Mauvans elected military leader of the Protestants in Provence at Mérindol.
[15–19 March]: Conspiracy of Amboise. Huguenot captains who were part of the conspiracy and other Protestants assembled to present a confession of faith to the king, arrested and put to death.
[1 April]: Catherine de Médicis chooses Michel de l’Hospital as her chancellor.
[1–5 May]: The uprising against the ‘Lutherans’ of the Cabans (peasants from around Salon) led by Louis Villermin, called Curnier, and against Antoine de La Marck, called Trippoly, a close confidant of Nostradamus. ‘As past injuries had made this enmity irreconcilable, one being from the nobles and the other from the people, it happened that, on 2 July (the beginning of the festival of the Visitation of Our Lady) between seven and eight o’clock in the evening, Villermain [i.e. Villermin] was the victim of an arquebus attack, from which he died an hour later. The rumour immediately began to circulate throughout the town, passing from person to person orally, making it known that the First Consul [of the town] was the victim of an assassination and had died, and that the Lutherans were behind the attack, in order to take over the town. At the news of this confrontation, the Cabans rose in force and open defiance still further, behaving and making noises like savage animals, frothing at the mouth like wild boar, going about the town in arms and, with blood-curdling cries, threatening to raze to the ground the houses of Lutherans and putting all the suspects to the sword … they made all the church bells sound the tocsin as though fire was about to engulf the whole town, or as though the enemy was about to seize the walls’. César de Nostredame, author of this account, witnessed his father's vulnerability, confronted by ‘ruffians, bloody butchers, common Cabans’ who treated him ‘with great indignity, and after his purse and money’.
[21 August]: Assembly of Notables at Fontainebleau, from which follows convocation of the Estates General.
[4–5 September]: Failed Protestant attempt to seize Lyon.
[26 November]: Louis de Bourbon, prince of Condé, sentenced to death.
[5 December]: François II dies. Charles IX ascends the throne, 11 years of age. In the following weeks Catherine de Médicis takes over the government of the kingdom, according the first prince of the blood, Antoine de Navarre, the title lieutenant du roi, then lieutenant général du royaume (27 March 1561).
[13 December]: Opening of the Estates General of Orléans. Speech by Michel de L’Hospital: ‘Let us eliminate these fiendish words – factions, seditions, Lutherans … .’.
1561: Birth of Diane de Nostredame, his second daughter. Reprint of the Traité des Fardements et Confitures. Publication of the Almanach nouveau pour l’an 1562 Composé par Maistre Michel Nostradamus, Docteur en Medecine, de Salon de Craux, en Provence … (Paris: Guillaume le Noir and Jehans Bonfons), with a dedication of 17 March 1561 to Pope Pius IV. The date of the print-privilege is 1 February 1561 [1560 O.S.].
[31 January]: End of the Estates General. The Ordinance of Orléans, a reforming programme for the realm is promulgated, in which Article 26 specifies: ‘And because those who dabble in prognosticating the future, publishing their almanacs and prognostications, exceed the limits of astrology, against the express commandment of God, something which should not be tolerated by Christian Princes, we forbid all Printers and Booksellers, on pain of prison and arbitrary fines, to print or put up for sale any Almanacs and Prognostications which have not first been inspected by the Archbishop or Bishop, or their agents. And whoever is found to have composed such Almanacs will be pursued in law expressly by our Judges and sentenced to corporal punishments’.
[February]: Beginnings of the public manifestation of the Protestant religion in Languedoc with the occupation of churches and outbreaks of iconoclasm.
[8 March]: Condé is proclaimed innocent by declaration of the Privy Council.
[14 April]: Nostradamus probably takes refuge in Avignon.
[13 July]: Edict forbidding private or public assemblies for worship, on pain of imprisonment and seizure of goods, and preventing ‘outrage, in words or deeds, in the name of religion, on pain of death’.
[July]: Beginning of the great wave of Huguenot iconoclasm in the French Midi.
[9 September]: Opening of the Colloquy of Poissy, aimed at exploring the possibilities for a doctrinal reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics. Twelve pastors, including Théodore de Bèze [Beza] attend and present their case against prelates and doctors of theology from the clergy.
[October]: Nostradamus at work on the horoscope for Charles IX.
[14–18 October]: End of the Colloquy of Poissy – ‘Both sides returned from it as wise and informed as when they had arrived’ (Étienne Pasquier).
1562: Publication of the Prognostication nouvelle pour l’an 1562. Composée par Maistre Michel Nostradamus. Docteur en Medecine, de Salon de Craux en Provence (Paris: Veuve Barbe Regnault).
(January): Edict granting Protestants freedom of worship under the supervision of royal officers, except in walled towns.
[1 March]: Massacre at Wassy, by the duke of Guise and his armed guard, of Huguenots, supposedly attending a preaching meeting within the town, supposedly forbidden by the Edict of January (1562).
[6 March]: Capture of Barjols by Huguenot soldiers belonging to the Comtes de Tende and Crussol. Massacre and pillage.
[10 March]: Despatch by Condé of an Avertissement to all the Huguenot churches of the kingdom, tantamount to an order to mobilize.
[16 March]: François de Guise enters Paris.
[22–24 March]: Order sent out by Condé to the Reformed churches to mobilize in the name of the preservation of the State, the liberty of the king, and the execution of royal commands.
[27 March]: The ‘Triumvirs’ (Anne de Montmorency, François de Guise, Jacques d’Albon de Saint-André) force Catherine de Médicis to leave Fontainebleau and follow them to Paris.
[2 April]: Condé seizes Orléans.
[15 April]: Rouen falls to the Huguenots.
[20 April]: Oubreak of iconoclastic destruction at Orléans; beginnings of a second wave of iconoclasm.
[29 April]: Assassination in Valence of the Catholic king's lieutenant in Dauphiné, Louis de la Motte Gondrin.
[11–12 May]: Collapse of the Huguenot insurrection at Toulouse.
[6 June]: Massacre of the protestants at Orange by the forces of Fabrizio Serbelloni, to the cry of ‘paguo Barjols’ (pay-back time for the excesses committed in the taking of Barjols).
[5 July]: Capture of Mornas by the protestant troops of the Baron de Montbrun; the garrison massacred to the cry of ‘Revenge for Orange! Kill! Kill!’
[4–5 September]: After a lengthy resistance, the protestants abandon the fortress at Sisteron.
[19 December]: The battle of Dreux, whose outcome is favourable to the Catholic forces. The death of the Marshal d’Albon de Saint-André. Condé is taken prisoner.
1563: Almanach pour l’an M.D.L.X.III. avec les presages, calculté et expliqué par M. Michel Nostradamus … (Avignon: Pierre Roux; Paris: chez Barbe Regnault) with a dedication to ‘tresill. Seign. Et tresexcellent capitaine, le S. Francoys Fabrice Serbellon’.
[18 February]: François de Guise fatally wounded whilst besieging Orléans by Poltrot de Méré; he dies six days later.
[19 March]: End of the First War of Religion. The edict of Amboise guarantees liberty of conscience to the Huguenots. Reformed worship is permitted in the houses of seigneurs with rights to exercise full justice on their domains, and for their families and subjects; in those of ordinary seigneurs holding a fief it is restricted to members of their family. Freedom to worship is allowed only in the suburbs of the head-town in each bailiwick, seneschalsy or government. Huguenot worship is forbidden in Paris. A second attempt at a politics of moderation is begun.
[17 August]: Charles IX's majority proclaimed in the Parlement of Rouen.
[4 December]: Closure of the Council of Trent.
1564: Almanach pour l’an M.D.L.XV., avecques ses tresamples significations & presages d’un chacun moys, Composé par M. Michel Nostradame … (Lyon: Benoist Odo, 1565). The dedicatory epistle is addressed to King Charles IX and dated 1 May. Prognostication ou revolution, avec les Presages, pour l’an Mil cinq cens Soixante-cinq (Lyon: Benoist Rigaud) with a dedication to ‘Monseigneur le duc d’Anjou’ (13 June).
[24 January]: Catherine de Médicis and Charles IX begin the royal Tour of France which will last 27 months.
[27 May]: Jean Calvin dies.
[September]: Plague in Salon.
[23 September]: Ceremonial entry of Charles IX into Avignon.
[17 October]: The royal party visits Salon. Nostradamus composes Latin inscriptions of welcome on behalf of the citizens of the town. Nostradamus has an audience with the Queen Mother and Charles IX, according to his son César de Nostredame: ‘The Consuls […] honorably accompanied by the most noble and distinguished bourgeois of the town, demanded upon the instant that Michel de Nostradame, whose renown was widespread, be with them and speak to His Majesty at the moment of his reception, in the not too vain hope that He would be particularly pleased to meet him’. Catherine de Médicis wrote to the Constable Anne de Montmorency that Nostradamus had promised the king that ‘[…] all many of things would be well […] and that he would live as long as you, and that he said you would be ninety years old before you die. I pray God that what he says is true … .’.
[November]: The royal court arrives in Arles, staying there for three weeks through to 7 December because the River Rhône was in spate. ‘During his stay [the king] was very desirous of seeing more of my father, whom he sent for expressly, and who, after numerous discussions, and knowing how the late King Henri II of most heroic memory, his father, regarded him as a special person, and had much honoured him during his Tour of France, sent him away with a gift of 200 gold crowns, and half as much again which the Queen gave him, and letters patent as councillor and physician in ordinary, with all the usual rewards, prerogatives and honours’.
1565: Almanach pour l’an M.D.LXVI., avec ses amples significations & explications, composé par Maistre Michel de Nostradame, Docteur en Medicine, Conseiller et Medecin ordinaire du Roy, de Salon de Craux en Provence (Lyon: Antoine Volant and Pierre Brot), with a dedicatory epistle to ‘Monseigneur Messire Honorat de Savoye Comte de Tande’. The print privilege is dated Lyon, 13 November 1565.
1566: Almanach pour l’an 1567. Composé par feu Maistre Michel de Nostredame, Docteur en medecine, Conseillet & medicin ordinaire du Roy (Lyon: Benoist Odo) with dedicatory epistles to ‘Monseigneur de Birague’, dated Salon-de-Crau (15 June 1566) and to ‘Principi Amanuel Philiberto’ (22 April 1566).
[17 June]: Nostradamus drafts his will: ‘When his soul is separated from his body, may the latter be taken for burial in the church of the monastery of St Francis in the said Salon, and between the great portal therein of the altar of St Martha, there where he has willed there to be made a tomb or monument against the wall’.1
[2 July]: Death of Nostradamus.
1567 [27–28 September]: Surprise of Meaux and the beginning of the second War of Religion.
1568: Les propheties de M. Michel Nostradamus. Dont il y en a trois cents qui n’ont jamais esté imprimées. Adjoustées de nouveau par ledict Autheur (Lyon: Chez Antoine du Rosne, 1568).