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97-545: Initially, the French Reformed Protestants, also called Huguenots , had neither an official creed nor centralised organisation. A brief statement of doctrinal principles ("biblical truths") was included in their editions of the Bible, the translation and publication of which was undertaken by Protestants in the middle of the 16th century. In 1534, Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples published a French translation of

194-683: A religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed ( Calvinist ) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Besançon Hugues (1491–1532), was in common use by the mid-16th century. Huguenot was frequently used in reference to those of the Reformed Church of France from the time of the Protestant Reformation . By contrast,

291-540: A Dutch and a German word. In the Dutch-speaking North of France , Bible students who gathered in each other's houses to study secretly were called Huis Genooten ("housemates") while on the Swiss and German borders they were termed Eid Genossen , or "oath fellows", that is, persons bound to each other by an oath . Gallicised into Huguenot , often used deprecatingly, the word became, during two and

388-513: A Huguenot defeat and the death of Anne de Montmorency , the royal commander-in-chief, and the short war ended in 1568 with the Peace of Longjumeau . The privileges granted to Protestants were widely opposed, however, leading to their cancellation and the resumption of war. The Dutch Republic , England and Navarre intervened on the Protestant side, while Spain, Tuscany and Pope Pius V supported

485-529: A combined reference to the Swiss politician Besançon Hugues (died 1532) and the religiously conflicted nature of Swiss republicanism in his time. It used a derogatory pun on the name Hugues by way of the Dutch word Huisgenoten (literally 'housemates'), referring to the connotations of a somewhat related word in German Eidgenosse ('Confederate' in the sense of 'a citizen of one of

582-433: A completely Catholic origin. As one legend holds, a gateway area in the streets of Tours was haunted by the ghosts of le roi Huguet (a generic term for these spirits), "because they were wont to assemble near the gate named after Hugon, a Count of Tours in ancient times, who had left a record of evil deeds and had become in popular fancy a sort of sinister and maleficent genius. This count may have been Hugh of Tours , who

679-520: A decidedly Calvinistic influence . Although usually Huguenots are lumped into one group, there were actually two types of Huguenots that emerged. Since the Huguenots had political and religious goals, it was commonplace to refer to the Calvinists as "Huguenots of religion" and those who opposed the monarchy as "Huguenots of the state", who were mostly nobles. Like other religious reformers of

776-475: A definitive political movement thereafter. Protestant preachers rallied a considerable army and a formidable cavalry, which came under the leadership of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. Henry of Navarre and the House of Bourbon allied themselves to the Huguenots, adding wealth and territorial holdings to the Protestant strength, which at its height grew to sixty fortified cities, and posed a serious and continuous threat to

873-574: A half centuries of terror and triumph, a badge of enduring honour and courage. Some disagree with such non-French linguistic origins. Janet Gray argues that for the word to have spread into common use in France, it must have originated there in French. The "Hugues hypothesis" argues that the name was derived by association with Hugues Capet , king of France, who reigned long before the Reformation. He

970-744: A leader of the Swiss Reformation , establishing a Protestant republican government in Geneva. Jean Cauvin ( John Calvin ), another student at the University of Paris, also converted to Protestantism. Long after the sect was suppressed by Francis I, the remaining French Waldensians , then mostly in the Luberon region, sought to join Farel, Calvin and the Reformation, and Olivétan published a French Bible for them. The French Confession of 1559 shows

1067-705: A letter to the King Charles IX of France that vindicated their principles. When persecution subsided, twenty delegates representing seventy-two churches met secretly in Paris from 23 to 27 May 1559. With François de Morel as moderator, the delegates produced a Constitution of Ecclesiastical Discipline and a Confession of Faith . Calvin's thirty-five articles were used in the Confession but were revised and extended to forty articles (the first two articles were expanded to six articles). The Confession begins with

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1164-421: A major Protestant nobleman in the line of succession to the French throne, in a last desperate bid to reconcile his people. Facing popular hostility against this policy of appeasement and at the instigation of his mother Catherine de' Medici , Charles oversaw the massacre of numerous Huguenot leaders who gathered in Paris for the royal wedding, though his direct involvement is still debated. This event, known as

1261-591: A second name—the Confession of La Rochelle . The Confession remained significant in the Reformed Church of France until the 19th century. This article about Reformed Christianity is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Huguenots Christianity • Protestantism The Huguenots ( / ˈ h juː ɡ ə n ɒ t s / HEW -gə-nots , UK also /- n oʊ z / -⁠nohz ; French: [yɡ(ə)no] ) are

1358-459: A single, centralised church organisation and common confessional document arose. In 1558, doctrinal differences arose among the Reformed churches of Poitiers , leading a visiting Parisian pastor , Antoine de la Roche Chandieu (1534–1591), to propose the convening of a synod with the intention of producing a common confession and book of discipline upon his return to Paris . In 1559, the first national French Reformed synod met in Paris, at which

1455-457: A special commission ( Chambre ardente ) was established in each parlement to monitor the execution of the edicts on heretics. Nevertheless, on May 25–28, 1559, the first national Synod of the Reformed Church of France was held in Paris under the chairmanship of the pastor of the Parisian congregation, Jean Morel, a student and friend of John Calvin . The exact number of delegates to the synod

1552-530: A widow, in the summer of 1561. In 1561, the Edict of Orléans declared an end to the persecution, and the Edict of Saint-Germain of January 1562 formally recognised the Huguenots for the first time. However, these measures disguised the growing tensions between Protestants and Catholics. These tensions spurred eight civil wars, interrupted by periods of relative calm, between 1562 and 1598. With each break in peace,

1649-668: Is still considered a confession of faith of the Waldensians today. The Belgic Confession (1561) is closely related to the French Confession; the author Guido de Brès closely followed and replicated the order of doctrines in his confession. In 1571, the seventh national synod of the French Reformed churches was held at La Rochelle , which had become the center of the French Reformation. Among

1746-539: Is the cause of all of this? God's blood, you are the cause of it all!" Catherine responded by declaring she had a lunatic for a son. Charles' physical condition, tending towards tuberculosis , deteriorated to the point where, by spring of 1574, his hoarse coughing turned bloody and his hemorrhages grew more violent. Charles IX died at the Château de Vincennes on 30 May 1574, aged 23. Given that his younger brother Henry, Duke of Anjou , had recently been elected King of

1843-466: Is unknown. The Confession was based on a statement of faith sent by the Reformed churches of France to John Calvin in 1557 during a period of persecution. Working from this, and probably with the help of Theodore Beza and Pierre Viret , Calvin and his pupil Antoine de la Roche Chandieu wrote a confession in French for them in the form of thirty-five articles. The Confession was to be presented with

1940-566: The Église des Protestants réformés (French Protestant church). Huguenot descendants sometimes display this symbol as a sign of reconnaissance (recognition) between them. The issue of demographic strength and geographical spread of the Reformed tradition in France has been covered in a variety of sources. Most of them agree that the Huguenot population reached as many as 10% of the total population, or roughly 2 million people, on

2037-603: The Cévennes , most Reformed members of the United Protestant Church of France , French members of the largely German Protestant Reformed Church of Alsace and Lorraine , and the Huguenot diaspora in England and Australia , all still retain their beliefs and Huguenot designation. The availability of the Bible in vernacular languages was important to the spread of the Protestant movement and development of

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2134-626: The Edict of Fontainebleau , revoking the Edict of Nantes and declaring Protestantism illegal. The revocation forbade Protestant services, required education of children as Catholics, and prohibited emigration. It proved disastrous to the Huguenots and costly for France. It precipitated civil bloodshed, ruined commerce, and resulted in the illegal flight from the country of hundreds of thousands of Protestants, many of whom were intellectuals, doctors and business leaders whose skills were transferred to Britain as well as Holland, Switzerland, Prussia, South Africa and other places they fled to. 4,000 emigrated to

2231-534: The Edict of Nantes . The Edict reaffirmed Roman Catholicism as the state religion of France, but granted the Protestants equality with Catholics under the throne and a degree of religious and political freedom within their domains. The Edict simultaneously protected Catholic interests by discouraging the founding of new Protestant churches in Catholic-controlled regions. With the proclamation of

2328-484: The Edict of Roussillon , which standardised 1 January as the first day of the year throughout France. War again broke out in 1567 after Charles added 6,000 Swiss mercenaries to his personal guards. Huguenots, fearing a Catholic attack was imminent, tried to abduct the king at Meaux , seized various cities, and massacred Catholics at Nîmes in an action known as the Michelade . The Battle of Saint-Denis resulted in

2425-527: The Edict of Versailles , commonly called the Edict of Tolerance , signed by Louis XVI in 1787. Two years later, with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 , Protestants gained equal rights as citizens. Charles IX of France Charles IX (Charles Maximilien; 27 June 1550 – 30 May 1574) was King of France from 1560 until his death in 1574. He ascended the French throne upon

2522-462: The French Wars of Religion , fought intermittently from 1562 to 1598. The Huguenots were led by Jeanne d'Albret ; her son, the future Henry IV (who would later convert to Catholicism in order to become king); and the princes of Condé . The wars ended with the Edict of Nantes of 1598, which granted the Huguenots substantial religious, political and military autonomy. Huguenot rebellions in

2619-495: The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre , was a significant blow to the Huguenot movement, and religious civil warfare soon began anew. Charles sought to take advantage of the disarray of the Huguenots by ordering the siege of La Rochelle , but was unable to take the Protestant stronghold. Many of Charles' decisions were influenced by his mother, a fervent Roman Catholic who initially supported a policy of relative religious tolerance . After

2716-694: The Thirteen Colonies , where they settled, especially in New York, the Delaware River Valley in Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia. The English authorities welcomed the French refugees, providing money from both government and private agencies to aid their relocation. Those Huguenots who stayed in France were subsequently forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism and were called "new converts". After this,

2813-722: The United Kingdom , the United States , South Africa , Australia , and a number of other countries still retain their identity. The bulk of Huguenot émigrés moved to Protestant states such as the Dutch Republic , England and Wales (prominently in Kent and London), Protestant-controlled Ireland , the Channel Islands , Scotland , Denmark , Sweden , Switzerland , the electorates of Brandenburg and

2910-465: The ascension of Henry of Navarre to the French throne as Henry IV , establishing the House of Bourbon as the new French royal dynasty. Charles Maximilien of France, third son of King Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici , was born on 27 June 1550 at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye . He was the fifth of ten children born to the royal couple. Styled since birth as Duke of Angoulême , he

3007-535: The 1534 Affair of the Placards , however, he distanced himself from Huguenots and their protection. Huguenot numbers grew rapidly between 1555 and 1561, chiefly amongst nobles and city dwellers. During this time, their opponents first dubbed the Protestants Huguenots ; but they called themselves reformés , or "Reformed". They organised their first national synod in 1558 in Paris. By 1562,

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3104-511: The 1620s resulted in the abolition of their political and military privileges. They retained the religious provisions of the Edict of Nantes until the rule of Louis XIV, who gradually increased persecution of Protestantism until he issued the Edict of Fontainebleau (1685). This ended legal recognition of Protestantism in France and the Huguenots were forced to either convert to Catholicism (possibly as Nicodemites ) or flee as refugees; they were subject to violent dragonnades. Louis XIV claimed that

3201-572: The 1760s Protestantism was no longer a favourite religion of the elite. By then, most Protestants were Cévennes peasants. It was still illegal, and, although the law was seldom enforced, it could be a threat or a nuisance to Protestants. Calvinists lived primarily in the Midi ; about 200,000 Lutherans accompanied by some Calvinists lived in the newly acquired Alsace , where the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia effectively protected them. Persecution of Protestants diminished in France after 1724, finally ending with

3298-627: The Atlantic coast in La Rochelle , and also spread across provinces of Normandy and Poitou . In the south, towns like Castres , Montauban , Montpellier and Nîmes were Huguenot strongholds. In addition, a dense network of Protestant villages permeated the rural mountainous region of the Cevennes . Inhabited by Camisards , it continues to be the backbone of French Protestantism . Historians estimate that roughly 80% of all Huguenots lived in

3395-642: The Bible into one of France's regional languages, Arpitan or Franco-Provençal , had been prepared by the 12th-century pre-Protestant reformer Peter Waldo (Pierre de Vaux). The Waldensians created fortified areas, as in Cabrières , perhaps attacking an abbey. They were suppressed by Francis I in 1545 in the Massacre of Mérindol . Other predecessors of the Reformed church included the pro-reform and Gallican Roman Catholics, such as Jacques Lefevre (c. 1455–1536). The Gallicans briefly achieved independence for

3492-558: The Catholic crown and Paris over the next three decades. [no source] The Catholic Church in France and many of its members opposed the Huguenots. Some Huguenot preachers and congregants were attacked as they attempted to meet for worship. The height of this persecution was the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in August, 1572, when 5,000 to 30,000 were killed, although there were also underlying political reasons for this as well, as some of

3589-568: The Catholics. Finally, the royal debt and the King's desire to seek a peaceful solution led to yet another truce, the Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in August 1570, which again granted concessions to the Huguenots. On 26 November 1570, Charles married Elisabeth of Austria , with whom he fathered one daughter, Marie Elisabeth . In 1573, Charles fathered an illegitimate son, Charles, Duke of Angoulême , with his mistress, Marie Touchet . After

3686-524: The Confession received approval in Germany, and was recognised by German synods at Wesel ( Westphalia ) in 1568 and Emden ( Lower Saxony ) in 1571. The Piedmontese Waldensians , who had already affiliated themselves with the Reformed churches in 1532, presented the French Confession as their own confession of faith to the Duke of Savoy in 1560. The 1655 shortened and revised form of the French Confession

3783-617: The Confession was presented in Amboise to the new king of France, Francis II . A preface was added to the document—an request for the king to cease the persecution of Protestants. However, on 5 December 1560, the king, who had not yet reached the age of 17, suddenly died in Orléans . A year later, in 1561, Theodore Beza introduced the Confession to the new king of France, Charles IX , at a religious conference in Poitiers. A few years later,

3880-412: The Edict of Nantes, and the subsequent protection of Huguenot rights, pressures to leave France abated. However, enforcement of the Edict grew increasingly irregular over time, making life so intolerable that many fled the country. The Huguenot population of France dropped to 856,000 by the mid-1660s, of which a plurality lived in rural areas. The greatest concentrations of Huguenots at this time resided in

3977-538: The French Huguenot population was reduced from about 900,000 or 800,000 adherents to just 1,000 or 1,500. He exaggerated the decline, but the dragonnades were devastating for the French Protestant community. The exodus of Huguenots from France created a brain drain , as many of them had occupied important places in society. The remaining Huguenots faced continued persecution under Louis XV . By

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4074-650: The French church, on the principle that the religion of France could not be controlled by the Bishop of Rome, a foreign power. During the Protestant Reformation, Lefevre, a professor at the University of Paris , published his French translation of the New Testament in 1523, followed by the whole Bible in the French language in 1530. William Farel was a student of Lefevre who went on to become

4171-603: The French crown offered increasingly liberal political concessions and edicts of toleration. Following the accidental death of Henry II in 1559, his son succeeded as King Francis II along with his wife, the Queen Consort, also known as Mary, Queen of Scots . During the eighteen months of the reign of Francis II, Mary encouraged a policy of rounding up French Huguenots on charges of heresy and putting them in front of Catholic judges, and employing torture and burning as punishments for dissenters. Mary returned to Scotland

4268-510: The French crown. Louis XIV inherited the throne in 1643 and acted increasingly aggressively to force the Huguenots to convert. At first he sent missionaries , backed by a fund to financially reward converts to Roman Catholicism. Then he imposed penalties, closed Huguenot schools and excluded them from favoured professions. Escalating, he instituted dragonnades , which included the occupation and looting of Huguenot homes by military troops, in an effort to forcibly convert them. In 1685, he issued

4365-471: The French throne and husband to Queen Jeanne III of Navarre , was appointed Lieutenant-General of France. In 1560, a group of Huguenot nobles at Amboise had planned to try to abduct King Francis II and arrest the Catholic leaders Francis, Duke of Guise , and his brother Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine . The plot was discovered ahead of time, and the Guises were prepared, executing hundreds of Huguenots. This

4462-417: The French throne. The crown, occupied by the House of Valois , generally supported the Catholic side, but on occasion switched over to the Protestant cause when politically expedient. The French Wars of Religion began with the Massacre of Vassy on 1 March 1562, when dozens (some sources say hundreds ) of Huguenots were killed, and about 200 were wounded. It was in this year that some Huguenots destroyed

4559-468: The Huguenots (with estimates ranging from 200,000 to 1,000,000 ) fled to Protestant countries: England, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, and Prussia—whose Calvinist Great Elector Frederick William welcomed them to help rebuild his war-ravaged and underpopulated country. Following this exodus, Huguenots remained in large numbers in only one region of France: the rugged Cévennes region in

4656-536: The Huguenots killed priests, monks, and nuns, attacked monasticism, and destroyed sacred images, relics, and church buildings. [no source] Most of the cities in which the Huguenots gained a hold saw iconoclast riots in which altars and images in churches, and sometimes the buildings themselves torn down. Ancient relics and texts were destroyed; the bodies of saints exhumed and burned. [no source] The cities of Bourges, Montauban and Orléans saw substantial activity in this regard. The Huguenots transformed themselves into

4753-499: The Huguenots were nobles trying to establish separate centres of power in southern France. Retaliating against the French Catholics, the Huguenots had their own militia. Early in his reign, Francis I ( r.  1515–1547 ) persecuted the old, pre-Protestant movement of Waldensians in southeastern France. Francis initially protected the Huguenot dissidents from Parlementary measures seeking to exterminate them. After

4850-458: The Huguenots' trust in the Catholic throne diminished, and the violence became more severe, and Protestant demands became grander, until a lasting cessation of open hostility finally occurred in 1598. The wars gradually took on a dynastic character, developing into an extended feud between the Houses of Bourbon and Guise , both of which—in addition to holding rival religious views—staked a claim to

4947-481: The New Testament. In 1552, Robert Estienne published the Bible and New Testament in Latin, and in 1553, J. Gerard published a French translation of the Bible. After the Peace of Augsburg (1555), Reformed congregations no longer needed to operate underground and thus grew to around 400,000 members. They organised in various parts of France between 1555 and 1558 with formal organisation and regular services. The need for

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5044-832: The Palatinate in the Holy Roman Empire , and the Duchy of Prussia . Some fled as refugees to the Dutch Cape Colony , the Dutch East Indies , various Caribbean colonies, and several of the Dutch and English colonies in North America. A few families went to Orthodox Russia and Catholic Quebec . After centuries, most Huguenots assimilated into the various societies and cultures where they have settled. Remnant communities of Camisards in

5141-453: The Protestant populations of eastern France, in Alsace , Moselle , and Montbéliard , were mainly Lutherans . In his Encyclopedia of Protestantism , Hans Hillerbrand wrote that on the eve of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, the Huguenot community made up as much as 10% of the French population. By 1600, it had declined to 7–8%, and was reduced further late in the century after

5238-585: The Reformed Church in France. The country had a long history of struggles with the papacy (see the Avignon Papacy , for example) by the time the Protestant Reformation finally arrived. Around 1294, a French version of the scriptures was prepared by the Roman Catholic priest, Guyard des Moulins . A two-volume illustrated folio paraphrase version based on his manuscript, by Jean de Rély, was printed in Paris in 1487. The first known translation of

5335-530: The Reformed Church) who were involved in the Amboise plot of 1560: a foiled attempt to wrest power in France from the influential and zealously Catholic House of Guise . This action would have fostered relations with the Swiss. O. I. A. Roche promoted this idea among historians. He wrote in his book, The Days of the Upright, A History of the Huguenots (1965), that Huguenot is: a combination of

5432-535: The Reformed areas revolted against royal authority. The uprising occurred a decade following the death of Henry IV , who was assassinated by a Catholic fanatic in 1610. His successor Louis XIII , under the regency of his Italian Catholic mother Marie de' Medici , was more intolerant of Protestantism. The Huguenots responded by establishing independent political and military structures, establishing diplomatic contacts with foreign powers, and openly revolting against central power. The rebellions were implacably suppressed by

5529-463: The central part of the country, were also contested between the French Reformed and Catholic nobles. Demographically, there were some areas in which the whole populations had been Reformed. These included villages in and around the Massif Central , as well as the area around Dordogne , which used to be almost entirely Reformed too. John Calvin was a Frenchman and himself largely responsible for

5626-498: The concessions given to the Huguenots. After the military leaders of both sides were either killed or captured in battles at Rouen , Dreux , and Orléans , the regent mediated a truce and issued the Edict of Amboise (1563). The war was followed by four years of an uneasy "armed peace", during which time Catherine united the factions in the successful effort to recapture Le Havre from the English. After this victory, Charles declared his legal majority in August 1563, formally ending

5723-405: The conclusion of the Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1570, the king increasingly came under the influence of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny , who had succeeded the slain Prince of Condé as leader of Huguenots after the Battle of Jarnac in 1569. Catherine, however, became increasingly fearful of Coligny's unchecked power, especially since he was pursuing an alliance with England and the Dutch. Coligny

5820-421: The country of Tourraine and Amboyse, it became in vogue after that enterprise." Some have suggested the name was derived, with intended scorn, from les guenon de Hus (the 'monkeys' or 'apes of Jan Hus '). By 1911, there was still no consensus in the United States on this interpretation. The Huguenot cross is the distinctive emblem of the Huguenots ( croix huguenote ). It is now an official symbol of

5917-408: The day that they were forced to wait till night to assemble, for the purpose of praying God, for preaching and receiving the Holy Sacrament; so that although they did not frighten nor hurt anybody, the priests, through mockery, made them the successors of those spirits which roam the night; and thus that name being quite common in the mouth of the populace, to designate the evangelical huguenands in

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6014-456: The death of his brother Francis II in 1560, and as such was the penultimate monarch of the House of Valois . Charles' reign saw the culmination of decades of tension between Protestants and Catholics. Civil and religious war broke out between the two parties after the massacre of Vassy in 1562. In 1572, following several unsuccessful attempts at brokering peace, Charles arranged the marriage of his sister Margaret to Henry of Navarre ,

6111-490: The dismantling of the city's fortifications. A royal citadel was built and the university and consulate were taken over by the Catholic party. Even before the Edict of Alès (1629), Protestant rule was dead and the ville de sûreté was no more. By 1620, the Huguenots were on the defensive, and the government increasingly applied pressure. A series of three small civil wars known as the Huguenot rebellions broke out, mainly in southwestern France, between 1621 and 1629 in which

6208-428: The estimated number of Huguenots peaked at approximately two million, concentrated mainly in the western, southern, and some central parts of France, compared to approximately sixteen million Catholics during the same period. Persecution diminished the number of Huguenots who remained in France. As the Huguenots gained influence and displayed their faith more openly, Roman Catholic hostility towards them grew, even though

6305-501: The eve of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572. The new teaching of John Calvin attracted sizeable portions of the nobility and urban bourgeoisie . After John Calvin introduced the Reformation in France, the number of French Protestants steadily swelled to ten percent of the population, or roughly 1.8 million people, in the decade between 1560 and 1570. During the same period there were some 1,400 Reformed churches operating in France. Hans J. Hillerbrand, an expert on

6402-521: The eve of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Since then, it sharply decreased as the Huguenots were no longer tolerated by both the French royalty and the Catholic masses. By the end of the sixteenth century, Huguenots constituted 7–8% of the whole population, or 1.2 million people. By the time Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Huguenots accounted for 800,000 to 1 million people. Huguenots controlled sizeable areas in southern and western France. In addition, many areas, especially in

6499-438: The events of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, he began to support the persecution of Huguenots. However, the incident haunted Charles for the rest of his life, and historians suspect that it caused his physical and mental health to deteriorate over the next two years. Charles died of tuberculosis in 1574 without legitimate male issue, and was succeeded by his brother Henry III , whose own death in 1589 without issue allowed for

6596-405: The exact number of fatalities throughout the country is not known, on 23–24 August, between 2,000 and 3,000 Protestants were killed in Paris and a further 3,000 to 7,000 more in the French provinces. By 17 September, almost 25,000 Protestants had been massacred in Paris alone. Beyond Paris, the killings continued until 3 October. An amnesty granted in 1573 pardoned the perpetrators. Following

6693-451: The following account as to the origin of the name, as cited by The Cape Monthly : Reguier de la Plancha accounts for it [the name] as follows: "The name huguenand was given to those of the religion during the affair of Amboyse, and they were to retain it ever since. I'll say a word about it to settle the doubts of those who have strayed in seeking its origin. The superstition of our ancestors, to within twenty or thirty years thereabouts,

6790-400: The fuse that sparked the French Wars of Religion . Louis of Bourbon, Prince of Condé , brother of the Lieutenant-General and the suspected architect of the Amboise conspiracy , had already prepared for war and, taking Wassy as the pretext, assumed the role of a protector of Protestantism and began to seize and garrison strategic towns along the Loire Valley . In response, the monarchy revoked

6887-416: The honored guests present were Jeanne III , Queen of Navarre, her son Henry of Navarre (later King Henry IV), Prince Louis of Condé , Admiral Gaspard Coligny and other high-ranking French Huguenots. The text of the French Confession was read to all the representatives of the congregations and guests present at the synod, and then signed by them. After this solemn procedure, the Gallican Confession received

6984-515: The introduction and spread of the Reformed tradition in France. He wrote in French, but unlike the Protestant development in Germany , where Lutheran writings were widely distributed and could be read by the common man, it was not the case in France, where only nobles adopted the new faith and the folk remained Catholic. This is true for many areas in the west and south controlled by the Huguenot nobility. Although relatively large portions of

7081-474: The killings many Protestants fled to the Kentish coast among other places. The pattern of warfare, followed by brief periods of peace, continued for nearly another quarter-century. The warfare was definitively quelled in 1598, when Henry of Navarre, having succeeded to the French throne as Henry IV , and having recanted Protestantism in favour of Roman Catholicism in order to obtain the French crown, issued

7178-440: The king's fragile mental and physical constitution weakened drastically. His moods swung from boasting about the extremity of the massacre to exclamations that the screams of the murdered Huguenots kept ringing in his ears. Frantically, he blamed alternately himself – "What blood shed! What murders!", he cried to his nurse. "What evil counsel I have followed! O my God, forgive me... I am lost! I am lost!" – or his mother – "Who but you

7275-508: The massacres weakened Huguenot power, they also reignited war, which only ceased after the Edict of Boulogne in 1573 granted Huguenots amnesty and limited religious freedom. However, the year 1574 saw a failed Huguenot coup at Saint-Germain and successful Huguenot uprisings in Normandy, Poitou and the Rhône valley, setting the stage for another round of war. In the aftermath of the massacre,

7372-453: The peasant population became Reformed there, the people, altogether, still remained majority Catholic. Overall, Huguenot presence was heavily concentrated in the western and southern portions of the French kingdom, as nobles there secured practise of the new faith. These included Languedoc-Roussillon , Gascony and even a strip of land that stretched into the Dauphiné . Huguenots lived on

7469-497: The regency. However, Catherine continued to play a principal role in politics, and often dominated her son. In March 1564, the King and his mother set out from Fontainebleau on a grand tour of France . Their tour spanned two years and brought them through Bar, Lyon , Salon-de-Provence (where they visited Nostradamus ), Carcassonne , Toulouse (where the King and his younger brother Henry were confirmed ), Bayonne , La Rochelle , and Moulins . During this trip, Charles IX issued

7566-421: The regions of Guienne , Saintonge- Aunis - Angoumois and Poitou . Montpellier was among the most important of the 66 villes de sûreté ('cities of protection' or 'protected cities') that the Edict of 1598 granted to the Huguenots. The city's political institutions and the university were all handed over to the Huguenots. Tension with Paris led to a siege by the royal army in 1622 . Peace terms called for

7663-562: The return of persecution under Louis XIV , who instituted the dragonnades to forcibly convert Protestants, and then finally revoked all Protestant rights in his Edict of Fontainebleau of 1685. In 1986, the Protestant population sat at 1% of the population. The Huguenots were concentrated in the southern and western parts of the Kingdom of France . As Huguenots gained influence and more openly displayed their faith, Catholic hostility grew. A series of religious conflicts followed, known as

7760-606: The south. There were also some Calvinists in the Alsace region, which then belonged to the Holy Roman Empire . In the early 18th century, a regional group known as the Camisards (who were Huguenots of the mountainous Massif Central region) rioted against the Catholic Church, burning churches and killing the clergy. It took French troops years to hunt down and destroy all the bands of Camisards, between 1702 and 1709. By

7857-676: The states of the Swiss Confederacy'). Geneva was John Calvin 's adopted home and the centre of the Calvinist movement. In Geneva, Hugues, though Catholic , was a leader of the "Confederate Party", so called because it favoured independence from the Duke of Savoy . It sought an alliance between the city-state of Geneva and the Swiss Confederation . The label Huguenot was purportedly first applied in France to those conspirators (all of them aristocratic members of

7954-411: The street, Parisians mutilated the body. The mob action then erupted into the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre , a systematic slaughter of Huguenots that was to last five days. Henry of Navarre managed to avoid death by pledging to convert to Catholicism. Over the next few weeks, the disorder spread to more cities across France. In all, up to 10,000 Huguenots were killed in Paris and the provinces. Though

8051-467: The subject, in his Encyclopedia of Protestantism: 4-volume Set claims the Huguenot community reached as much as 10% of the French population on the eve of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre , declining to 7 to 8% by the end of the 16th century, and further after heavy persecution began once again with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685. Among the nobles, Calvinism peaked on

8148-575: The subtitle "Confession of Faith, made in one accord by the French people, who desire to live according to the purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. A.D. 1559." Each article is accompanied by references to the Bible. The structure is similar to Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559) and Genevan Catechism (1542/1545), being divided into the following four sections. On 10 July 1559, Henry II died in Paris. In 1560,

8245-606: The time of his death in 1774, Calvinism had been all but eliminated from France. Persecution of Protestants officially ended with the Edict of Versailles , signed by Louis XVI in 1787. Two years later, with the Revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, Protestants gained equal rights as citizens. A term used originally in derision, Huguenot has unclear origins. Various hypotheses have been promoted. The term may have been

8342-455: The time, Huguenots felt that the Catholic Church needed a radical cleansing of its impurities, and that the Pope represented a worldly kingdom, which sat in mocking tyranny over the things of God, and was ultimately doomed. Rhetoric like this became fiercer as events unfolded, and eventually stirred up a reaction in the Catholic establishment. [no source] Fanatically opposed to the Catholic Church,

8439-586: The tomb and remains of Saint Irenaeus (d. 202), an early Church father and bishop who was a disciple of Polycarp . The Michelade by Huguenotes against Catholics was later on 29 September 1567. In what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 24 August – 3 October 1572, Catholics killed thousands of Huguenots in Paris and similar massacres took place in other towns in the following weeks. The main provincial towns and cities experiencing massacres were Aix , Bordeaux , Bourges , Lyons , Meaux , Orléans , Rouen , Toulouse , and Troyes . Although

8536-547: The two documents were produced. All this activity took place in conditions of strict secrecy. As early as 1555, Henry II issued an edict which mandated the death penalty for all those guilty of heresy , threatening the Huguenots with burning at the stake. After the conclusion of the Italian Wars with the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in March–April 1559, the king set about eradicating heresy with particular zeal. In 1559,

8633-451: The wedding, which was set for 18 August 1572. On 22 August, a failed attempt on Coligny's life put the city in a state of apprehension, as both visiting Huguenots and Parisian Catholics feared an attack by the other side. In this situation, in the early morning of 24 August 1572, the Duke of Guise moved to avenge his father and murdered Coligny in his lodgings. As Coligny's body was thrown into

8730-547: The western and southern areas of France. Today, there are some Reformed communities around the world that still retain their Huguenot identity. In France, Calvinists in the United Protestant Church of France and also some in the Protestant Reformed Church of Alsace and Lorraine consider themselves Huguenots. A rural Huguenot community in the Cevennes that rebelled in 1702 is still called Camisards , especially in historical contexts. Huguenot exiles in

8827-533: Was also hated by Henry, Duke of Guise, who accused the Admiral of having ordered the assassination of his father Francis of Guise during the siege of Orléans in 1563. During the peace settlement, a marriage was arranged between Charles' sister Margaret of Valois and Henry of Navarre, the future King Henry IV, who was at that time heir to the throne of Navarre and one of the leading Huguenots. Many Huguenot nobles, including Admiral de Coligny, thronged into Paris for

8924-562: Was created Duke of Orléans after the death of his elder brother Louis , his parents' second son, who had died in infancy on 24 October 1550. The royal children were raised under the supervision of the governor and governess of the royal children, Claude d'Urfé and Françoise d'Humières , under the orders of Diane de Poitiers . On 14 May 1564, Charles was presented the Order of the Garter by Henry Carey . Charles' father died in 1559, and

9021-873: Was disliked for his cowardice. Additionally, it is related, that, it was believed, (that of these spirits) instead of spending their time in Purgatory, came back to rattle doors and haunt and harm people at night. Protestants went out at nights to their lascivious conventicles, and so the priests and the people began to call them Huguenots in Tours and then elsewhere." The name, Huguenot, "the people applied in hatred and derision to those who were elsewhere called Lutherans, and from Touraine it spread throughout France." The prétendus réformés ('supposedly reformed') were said to gather at night at Tours , both for political purposes, and for prayer and singing psalms . Reguier de la Plancha (d. 1560) in his De l'Estat de France offered

9118-628: Was followed by cases of Protestant iconoclasm and Catholic reprisals. The regent Catherine tried to foster reconciliation at the Colloquy at Poissy and, after that failed, made several concessions to the Huguenots in the Edict of Saint-Germain in January 1562. Nonetheless, the Massacre of Vassy , perpetrated on 1 March 1562, when the Duke of Guise and his troops attacked and killed or wounded over 100 Huguenot worshipers and citizens, brought France spiralling towards civil war. The massacre lit

9215-534: Was regarded by the Gallicians as a noble man who respected people's dignity and lives. Janet Gray and other supporters of the hypothesis suggest that the name huguenote would be roughly equivalent to 'little Hugos', or 'those who want Hugo'. Paul Ristelhuber, in his 1879 introduction to a new edition of the controversial and censored, but popular 1566 work Apologie pour Hérodote , by Henri Estienne , mentions these theories and opinions, but tends to support

9312-522: Was succeeded by Charles' elder brother, King Francis II . Francis II died in 1560. The ten-year-old Charles was immediately proclaimed king on 5 December 1560, and the Privy Council appointed his mother, Catherine de' Medici , as governor of France ( gouvernante de France ), with sweeping powers, at first acting as regent for her young son. On 15 May 1561, Charles was consecrated in the cathedral at Reims . Antoine of Bourbon , himself in line to

9409-645: Was such that in almost all the towns in the kingdom they had a notion that certain spirits underwent their Purgatory in this world after death, and that they went about the town at night, striking and outraging many people whom they found in the streets. But the light of the Gospel has made them vanish, and teaches us that these spirits were street-strollers and ruffians. In Paris the spirit was called le moine bourré ; at Orléans, le mulet odet ; at Blois le loup garon ; at Tours, le Roy Huguet ; and so on in other places. Now, it happens that those whom they called Lutherans were at that time so narrowly watched during

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