Huguenot

The Huguenots were people in France who practiced the Protestant religion as taught by theologian John Calvin. After the Reformation began in the sixteenth century, many thousands of people across Europe turned to different forms of Protestantism. In France, Calvin helped to establish the Huguenots, which grew quickly in the mid-1500s, with some two thousand Huguenot churches in the country by 1561. However, tensions with Catholicism—the official and majority religion of France—led to generations of conflict. Bloody wars ensued, and by the late 1600s, hundreds of thousands of Huguenots had fled to Europe, South Africa, and the British North American colonies.

Brief History

By the beginning of the sixteenth century, Catholicism was the dominant form of Christianity. With the recent creation of the printing press, many more Bibles were available, and common people could own and study religious texts without relying on the interpretations of Catholic leaders. Some Christians discovered what they believed were serious inconsistencies between Catholic principles and procedures and the information contained in the Bible, the root text of the Christian faith.

One of the main points of disagreement between the Bible and Catholicism was the practice of indulgences, or paying money to the church to have one's sins forgiven. Embittered Catholics felt this concept was against God's will and just a ploy by which crooked church leaders could amass personal wealth while pleasing rich patrons.

In 1517, a German monk named Martin Luther compiled the Ninety-Five Theses, a list of points about which he believed the Catholic Church had strayed from the teachings of the Bible. When Luther posted this list on a church door, he began the Protestant Reformation, a time of sweeping change in Christianity. Many religious figures and philosophers embraced the principles of the Reformation. These people urged their followers to leave behind Catholicism and find new, purer means of Christian worship based more directly on biblical teachings and personal relationships with God.

The Protestant Reformation spread quickly to neighboring France, where theologian John Calvin championed it. Calvin supported the idea of departing from Catholicism but did not agree with all of Martin Luther's ideas. Rather, he started his own kind of Protestantism called Calvinism. Calvinism was based on the belief that people can achieve salvation through their own personal faiths and individual interpretations of the Bible.

The French Protestants who came to follow Calvin's teachings were called Huguenots. Scholars dispute the exact meaning of this name. Some believe it derives from terms from the German or Flemish languages, such as Huis Genooten ("house fellows") or Eidgenossen ("oath fellows"), referencing their religious meetings and convictions. Other stories hold that the term Huguenots is derived from King Hugo, a Frankish leader whose castle gate was a meeting place for some French Protestants, or from a Protestant leader in Geneva named Besançon Hugues.

Overview

The Huguenot faith became very popular throughout France. It appealed to Christians who felt they had been poorly treated by the Catholic Church or by the government, which supported Catholicism and its belief systems. It also appealed to intellectuals, artisans, professionals, and middle-class and aristocratic citizens who felt the Protestant ways gave them the religious and political freedom they wanted and deserved.

The Huguenot church expanded at an astounding rate. The first Huguenot church was founded in 1555 in Paris. Four years later, about fifteen Huguenot assemblies existed in France. By 1561, the number of churches exceeded two thousand. Some of these early churches were accepted and even favored by the ruling classes, mostly due to the high class and economic power of the Huguenot converts.

However, the Huguenots quickly fell out of favor. About 90 percent of the French population followed Catholicism. The Catholic Church held extreme political power in the country and was the chosen religion of the French theocracy. The Huguenot system and all other forms of Protestantism came to be widely viewed as religiously sinful and politically criminal. Huguenots were accused of heresy and became targets of often brutal discrimination.

As early as the 1560s, large-scale clashes between Catholics and Huguenots raged throughout France. These conflicts lasted more than thirty years and led to thousands of deaths. One of the bloodiest encounters took place in 1562 when Catholic forces killed about 1,200 Huguenots in the town of Vassey (also known as Vassy or Wassy). Ten years later, Catholic-aligned soldiers attacked Huguenots celebrating a wedding, killing hundreds.

The Huguenots resisted and gained the upper hand on March 4, 1590, when Huguenot leader Prince Henry of Navarre won an important victory over Catholic forces at the Battle of Ivry in Normandy. Prince Henry went on to become King Henry IV. In 1598, Henry enacted the Edict of Nantes, a document that gave some religious freedom to the people of France and some relief to the long-beleaguered Huguenots.

The assassination of Henry and the ascension of a new Catholic king, Louis XIII, in 1610 brought a new wave of tension and religious conflict in France. Once again, persecution and war returned to the Huguenots. A crushing Huguenot military loss in La Rochelle in 1628 and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685 meant that Huguenots were once again considered heretics and criminals throughout France.

Hundreds of thousands of Huguenots fled the country in the 1600s. Most of them spread throughout Europe, taking refuge, and eventually settling in countries such as England, Germany, and the Netherlands, where Protestantism was more accepted. Over time, many Huguenots proceeded to South African colonies or to the New World of British North America. In the latter, they favored the colonies of New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas.

Generally, these Huguenots were professionals, intellectuals, craftspeople, and upstanding citizens and found prosperity in their new homelands. Historians have noted that the loss of these citizens may have substantially hurt the growth of French culture while benefiting that of other countries. Although the French government passed the Edict of Toleration, a guarantee of limited religious freedoms, in 1787, few Huguenots attempted to return to their homeland. The descendants of Huguenots can be found in various countries in the twenty-first century, but they are most often found in areas where they sought refuge during the religious persecution they faced in France. Many are found in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, and South Africa. Many descendants of the Huguenots participate in organizations meant to preserve Huguenot history and culture. 

Bibliography

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Dégert, Antoine. "Huguenots." The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 7. Robert Appleton Company, 1910.

Garrioch, David. “Huguenot Belief and Practice in Eighteenth-Century Paris.” Journal of Religious History, vol. 39, no. 1, Mar. 2015, pp. 14–30. EBSCOhost, /search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=khh&AN=101300238&site=ehost-live. Accessed 11 Dec. 2024.

"Huguenot History." Huguenot Society of America, www.huguenotsocietyofamerica.org/history/huguenot-history/. Accessed 11 Dec. 2024.

"The Huguenots." Huguenot Society of South Carolina, huguenotsociety.org/huguenots. Accessed 11 Dec. 2024.

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Treasure, Geoffrey. The Huguenots. Yale University Press, 2013.

"Who Were the Huguenots?" National Huguenot Society, nationalhuguenotsociety.org/who-were-the-huguenots/. Accessed 11 Dec. 2024.