Early history and beliefs
The availability of the Bible in local (vernacular) languages was important to the spread of the Protestant movement and the development of the Reformed church in France, and the country had a long history of struggles with the papacy by the time the Protestant Reformation finally arrived. Around 1294, a French version of the Scriptures was prepared by the Roman Catholic priest,Guyard de Moulin. The first known translation of the Bible into one of France's regional languagesArpitan or Franco-Provençal, had been prepared by the 12th century pre-reformer, Peter Waldo(Pierre de Vaux).[10] Long after the sect was suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church, the remaining Waldensians, now mostly in the Luberon region of France, sought to join William Farel,John Calvin and the Protestant Reformation, and Olivetan published a French Bible for them. A two-volume folio version of this translation appeared in Paris, in 1488.[citation needed] Many of those who emerged from secrecy at this time were slaughtered by Francis I in 1545 in the Massacre of Mérindol.[11] Since Calvin lived from 1509 to 1564 and Olivetan was his nephew, it is unlikely that Olivetan's French translation of the bible (commissioned by the Waldensians) was published in Paris in 1488.
Other predecessors of the Reformed church included the pro-reform and Gallican Roman Catholics, like Jacques Lefevre (c. 1455–1536). The Gallicans briefly achieved independence for the French church, on the principle that the religion of France could not be controlled by the Bishop of Rome, a foreign power.[12] In the time of the Protestant Reformation, Lefevre, a professor at the University of Paris, prepared the way for the rapid dissemination of Lutheran ideas in France with the publication of his French translation of the New Testament in 1523, followed by the whole Bible in the French language, in 1528.[citation needed] William Farel was a student of Lefevre who went on to become a leader of the Swiss Reformation, establishing a Protestant government in Geneva. Jean Cauvin(John Calvin), another student at the University of Paris, also converted to Protestantism. The French Confession of 1559 shows a decidedlyCalvinistic influence.[13] Sometime between 1550 and 1580, members of the Reformed church in France came to be commonly known asHuguenots.
[edit]Criticisms of the Catholic Church
Above all, Huguenots became known for their harsh criticisms of doctrine and worship in the Catholic Church from which they had broken away, in particular the sacramental rituals of the Church and what they viewed as an obsession with death and the dead. They believed that the ritual, images, saints, pilgrimages, prayers, and hierarchy of the Catholic Church did not help anyone toward redemption. They saw Christian life as something to be expressed as a life of simple faith in God, relying upon God for salvation, and not upon the Church's sacraments or rituals, while obeying Biblical law.
Like other religious reformers of the time, they felt that the Catholic Church needed radical cleansing of its impurities, and that the Pope ruled the Church as if it was 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.
The Catholic Church in France opposed the Huguenots, and there were incidents of attacks on Huguenot preachers and congregants as they attempted to meet for worship.[14] The height of this persecution was the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre when 5,000 to 30,000 were killed. The Huguenots, retaliating against the French Catholics, frequently took up arms, even forcibly taking a few Catholic cities. Many Catholic monuments and shrines were destroyed in this action, a result of the Huguenots' iconoclasm.[citation needed]
The Huguenots took part in anti-Catholic movements in England during the reign of Henry VIII. They were hired by Henry VIII to suppress various Catholic orders in England. They were responsible for confiscation of many of the Catholic Church's possessions at the time on behalf of the king.
[edit]Reform and growth
Huguenots faced persecution from the outset of the Reformation; but Francis I (reigned 1515–1547) initially protected them from Parlementarymeasures designed for their extermination. The Affair of the Placards[15][16] of 1534 changed the king's posture toward the Huguenots: he stepped away from restraining persecution of the movement.
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.[17]
By 1562, the estimated number, concentrated mainly in the southern and central parts of the country. The Huguenots in France likely peaked in number at approximately two million, compared to approximately sixteen million Catholics during the same period. Persecution diminished the number of Huguenots. Close to 30,000 Huguenots were killed during St. Bartholomew's Day massacre alone,[18] and many times that amount before and after. Many fled from France to Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, and England.
[edit]Wars of religion
Main article: French Wars of Religion
As the Huguenots gained influence and displayed their faith more openly, Roman Catholic hostility to them grew, even though the French crown offered increasingly liberal political concessions and edicts of toleration.
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.
[edit]Civil wars
These tensions spurred eight civil wars, interrupted by periods of relative calm, between 1562 and 1598. With each break in peace, 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 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 a massacre atWassy on 1 March 1562, when dozens[4] (some sources say hundreds[19]) of Huguenots were killed, and about 200 were wounded.
The Huguenots became organized as 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 with the Huguenots, adding wealth and holdings to the Protestant strength. At its height, they controlled sixty fortified cities and posed a serious threat to the Catholic crown and Paris over the next three decades.
[edit]St. Bartholomew's Day massacre
Main article: St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre
In what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 24 August – 3 October 1572, Catholics killed thousands of Huguenots in Paris. Similar massacres took place in other towns in the weeks following. The main provincial towns and cities experiencing the Massacre were Aix, Bordeaux, Bourges, Lyon, Meaux, Orleans, Rouen, Toulouse, and Troyes.[20] Nearly 3,000 Protestants were slaughtered in Toulouse alone.[21] The exact number of fatalities throughout the country is not known. On the 23–24 August, between about 2,000[22] and 3,000[23][24] Protestants were killed in Paris and between 3,000[25] and 7,000 more[26] in the French provinces. By 17 September, almost 25,000 Protestants had been massacred in Paris alone.[27][28] Outside of Paris, the killings continued until the 3 October.[27] An amnesty granted in 1573 pardoned the perpetrators.
[edit]Edict of Nantes
See also: Huguenot rebellions
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 recanted Protestantism in favour of Roman Catholicism, issued the Edict of Nantes. The Edict established 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 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, and it was increasingly ignored altogether under Louis XIV. Louis imposed dragonnadesand other forms of persecution for Protestants, which made 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 the regions of Guienne, Saintonge-Aunis-Angoumois and Poitou.[29]
Montpellier was among the most important of the 66 "villes de sûreté" 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 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 small civil wars that broke out in southern France between 1610 and 1635 were long considered by historians to be regional squabbles between rival noble families. New analysis shows that these civil wars were in fact religious in nature, remnants of the French Wars of Religion that largely ended with the Edict of Nantes in 1598. Small wars in the provinces of Languedoc and Guyenne show Catholic and Calvinist groups using destruction of churches, iconoclasm, forced conversions, and the execution of heretics as weapons of choice.
