Huguenots

The Huguenots, or French Protestants (see Reformation), survived persecution and war to achieve the right to practice their religion.

In the first half of the 16th century, French reformers drew inspiration from Martin Luther and biblical humanism, but from midcentury the Protestant churches in France drew their most important theological ideas from John Calvin and modeled their church organization after the Genevan model. Calvinist literature, aided by the printing press, also spread rapidly.

Protestants never became a majority in France, but their churches grew rapidly. By the middle of the 16th century, modern scholars suggest that between one-tenth and one-fourth of the population had become Protestant. These converts included members of every social class, but artisans, members of the professions, and the nobility predominated. Relatively few peasants became Protestants, possibly because low literacy rates slowed the rate at which Protestant ideas could spread.

By 1562 about one-third of the nobility had either converted to Protestantism or supported the Huguenot cause. Religious differences accented previously existing rivalries among noble families, which helped lead to the French Wars of Religion. At the same time that Protestant churches were growing, the French Crown was distracted with problems of its own. King Henry II died in 1559, leaving his widow, Catherine de’ Medici, and four young sons. Catherine de’ Medici put an end to persecution of Protestants, issuing the Edict of Saint-Germain-des-Pres in 1562. By the terms of this edict, Huguenots were permitted limited rights of worship and assembly.

The Catholic nobles were incensed at this declaration of toleration. In 1562 Francis of Guise, a member of a leading Catholic noble family, led an attack on a congregation of Protestants worshiping in the town of Vassy, and 74 Protestants died. This incident touched off the Wars of Religion, which continued intermittently until 1598. In addition to the declared wars, every province in France also suffered from massacres and riots. The most infamous episode of the Wars of Religion was the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572. On August 23 and 24, many of the leading Huguenots in Paris were murdered, and the violence spread to other cities. The number of dead is unknown, but may have reached 30,000.

This blow changed the shape of French Protestantism. Within the Protestant community a division had existed between those who favored the oligarchic, authoritarian model of Genevan Calvinism and those who supported a more congregationalist church structure. Many of the leaders of the congregationalist party died in the massacres, thus strengthening the Genevans. In addition, the massacres led to new developments in Huguenot political thought. Huguenot thinkers, including Theodore de Beze, began to articulate theories that justified resistance to tyrannical leaders.

In 1598 King Henry IV (Henry of Navarre) issued the Edict of Nantes. This edict established limited toleration

For French Protestants. It recognized freedom of conscience, allowed Protestants to form their own churches (although not within Paris), and stated that education and high government offices were open to Protestants. The Edict of Nantes ended the Wars of Religion, but French Protestantism never fully recovered. In the next century the percentage of Protestants in the French population dropped from one-tenth to one-sixteenth.

Further reading: Euan Cameron, The European Reformation (Oxford, U. K.: Clarendon Press, 1991); Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1975); Barbara B. Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross: Catholics and Huguenots in Sixteenth-Century Paris (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Hans J. Hillerbrand, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Lewis W. Spitz, The Protestant Reformation, 1517-1559 (New York: Harper & Row, 1985).

—Martha K. Robinson