Huguenots

Huguenots, the Calvinist French Protestants. The name probably derives from Eidgenossen (Ger. ‘confederates’, i.e. those admitted to the Swiss Confederation, Gallicanized in Geneva as eigenotz). At its first Synod in Paris (1539) the French Protestant Church formally organized itself on a Calvinist basis. The movement was resisted by the family of the Guises who came to power in 1539. By 1561, however, the Huguenots were a sizeable national minority, and after the Colloquy of Poissy they obtained a measure of freedom to practise their religion. They were seen as a danger to the State and the ensuing wars of religion (1562–94) were fought between Catholics and Huguenots. In 1598 Henry IV, by the Edict of Nantes granted them freedom of worship and other rights, after the fall of their fortress of La Rochelle in 1628 they lost their political rights; their freedom was increasingly curtailed and the Edict of Nantes revoked in 1685. Many were forced to accept Catholicism or fled from France. After the failure of the rebellion of the Camisards in 1702–3, the influence of the Huguenots in France was negligible; only in 1802 was the legal standing of their Church re-established. In 1909 they combined with non-Calvinist bodies to form the Protestant Federation of France.