HUGUENOTS

HUGUENOTS. "Huguenot" was the pejorative name given to Calvinist French Protestants by their Catholic opponents in the sixteenth century. The etymology of the word is obscure and contested. Henri Estienne (Latin Stephanus) was among several contemporaries to attribute it to the name given around 1560 to Protestants in Tours, after the neighborhood and city gate in which they held their religious services. Estienne may well have been correct, but an alternative derivation from Eidgenossen ('Confederates') that had become Eigenotz, or the supporters of the Swiss Protestant canton of Bern against the supporters of Catholic Savoy in the factional politics of Geneva in the 1530s, is still widely accepted. French Protestants preferred to call themselves l'église réformée, 'the Reformed church', and the French crown normally referred to them officially as "those of the so-called Reformed religion" after 1560.

French Protestantism emerged from the deeper wells of biblical humanism, reforming Gallicanism, inflected Lutheranism, and religious heterodoxy. But, under the influence of persecution, many Protestants were exiled to Strasbourg, Basel, and Geneva, which is where John Calvin established himself permanently from 1541. Increasingly in the 1550s, the influence of Calvin's writings and the model of the Genevan church came to exercise a dominant impact upon French-speaking Protestants, first among the communities of exiles in the Rhineland and elsewhere and then, from 1555 onward, in France itself. The Genevan Company of Pastors (Compagnie des Pasteurs) began to train and dispatch a limited number of ministers back to France in response to a deluge of requests from particular communities. In this period, French Protestantism became, in its theology and organization, irreducibly Calvinist. Although there had been at least one earlier gathering of French churches in 1557, the first generally recognized synod of the French Protestant church took place secretly in Paris in 1559. The delegates endorsed the "Confession of Faith" and "Discipline" which, taken together, provided a constitution and a creed for the Reformed communities. In church organization, this meant that the powers, selection, and responsibility of church officers (the familiar elders, pastors, deacons, and doctors of the Genevan new order) were vested in individual churches in the form of a consistory, composed of these officials and often made up of its notability. A contrary view, that power be vested in the congregation at large, still found its echoes in the documents of 1559, but they were gradually eliminated from Huguenot thought and practice in the course of the 1560s, culminating in the modifications at the synod of La Rochelle in 1571. Thereafter, the Confession and Discipline proved enduring statements of what the Huguenots stood for over the next two centuries. For their opponents, however, the movement was defined by the Huguenot Psalter, the Genevan metrical translation begun by Clément Marot and completed by Théodore de Bèze, Calvin's successor in Geneva, and by the French vernacular Bible, most notably the Neuchâtel Bible, originally translated by Pierre Robert Olivétan (French Olivier, Latin Olivetanus) and the basis for all subsequent French Protestant Bibles (including the Geneva Bible) in the sixteenth century.

French Protestantism found itself at what would be the height of its influence in the early 1560s. The political circumstances of a royal minority and regency, and the emergence of powerful protectors at court, especially Gaspard III de Coligny (1519–1572) and his cousin, a younger prince of the blood, Louis I de Bourbon, prince of Condé (1530–1569), assisted the chaotic and dramatic growth in Protestant numbers in these years. In March 1562, Coligny is supposed to have presented a list of the 2,150 churches then extant in France to the regent Catherine de Médicis. His figure may, however, have been exaggerated, and later historians can only document the existence of around 1,200–1,250 churches in this decade, or less than 4 percent of the Catholic parishes of the kingdom. If we allow for 1,500 communicating members of each church, we arrive at an adult Protestant population of under two million, perhaps not far from 10 percent of the total population of the French kingdom. These churches were, however, unevenly distributed, reflecting on the one hand its literate, urban constituency and, on the other, its seigneurial heartland. Although there were many Reformed churches in Normandy, they remained quite widely scattered through the rest of northern France. Only south of the Loire, and especially in the crescent of communities stretching from La Rochelle through the southern provinces of Guyenne, Languedoc, and Dauphiné to Geneva, would there be a critical mass sufficient to provide an enduring basis for the forthcoming military struggle against the French crown.

That struggle was sustained and grueling. The Huguenots mobilized the resources of the churches in the early civil wars and seized royal revenues and ecclesiastical wealth in order to fund their campaigns. The civil wars lasted off and on from 1562 to 1598, and then again from 1622 to 1629. Without their naval strength off the Atlantic coast, mercenary German reinforcements, and the leadership of their most skilful "protector," Henry of Navarre, later Henry IV, king of France (ruled 1589–1610), they would probably not have succeeded in winning the limited degrees of toleration that the French crown reluctantly conceded them in edicts of pacification that culminated in the pacification of Nantes (April 1598), modified by the peace of Alais (1629). From the early civil wars, however, the antipathy of the Catholic majority in France toward the Huguenots was manifested by aristocratic feud and sectarian hatred. Both culminated in the famous St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (August 1572) in Paris, an event that was mirrored in a score of provincial cities in the following weeks. The experience permanently eroded Protestant support, especially in northern France. It also cemented the emerging defensive and stoic mentality of French Protestantism, in which earlier persecution (recalled in successive and enlarged editions of Jean Crespin's famous French martyrology, the Histoire des martyrs [1554]) became the pattern of the way in which God repeatedly tested his faithful French elect.

The sixteenth-century Catholic perception of Huguenot political engagement has created an enduring view that they were republicans, determined to resist monarchical authority, who sought to establish a federal state in France after the model of the Swiss cantons or the emerging Dutch Republic. In reality, the basis for Huguenot "resistance theory" was laid among Protestant refugee reformers from a variety of backgrounds and found its echoes later in the sixteenth century among Catholics who were themselves similarly at odds with French monarchical authority. And, although French Protestants had a political assembly that met on an irregular basis to provide credibility to its military and financial organization, it was never the basis for a republican movement. In reality French Huguenots continued to adhere to the principles of monarchy, even though they preferred (like many of their Catholic counterparts) to see it in less than absolutist terms. Their great spokesman and one-time advisor to Henry IV, Philippe Duplessis Mornay, repeatedly defended his coreligionists against those who accused them of wanting to set up a "state within a state," to "diminish royal authority," or "establish a democracy." A comparable distillation, that the Huguenots stood for the principle of religious toleration, has also to be seen as something of a retrospective myth, born of the inevitable apologetic of a minority religious movement and incarnated by the Enlightenment and liberal nineteenth-century historiography.

The Edict of Nantes granted French Protestants limited rights of worship, access to royal offices, legal redress before special royal courts (known as chambres de l'édit or 'Chambers of the Edict'), and rights to establish their own academies. Royal letters (brevets) accompanying the edict granted subsidies for their troops, pastors, and schools and allowed them to garrison certain towns. The brevets were not maintained beyond 1629, and the terms of the edict were interpreted by royal officials in an increasingly restrictive way, especially after 1661, until the edict was revoked by Louis XIV in the Edict of Fontainebleau (October 1685). Of the 873 pastors remaining in France at that time, about 140 abjured; but the remainder chose to defy the edict and take up exile in the Dutch Republic (43 percent), Switzerland (27 percent), England (23 percent) and Germany (7 percent). More surprising to the authorities was the degree of illegal emigration of lay Huguenots—latest estimates suggest a figure of around 200,000. The Huguenot diaspora made the revocation a European phenomenon and cemented the French Protestant sense of a separate identity. The cultural and economic influence of the exiled Huguenots was far from negligible, spreading beyond Europe to colonial North America and the Dutch colonies, even if it has sometimes been exaggerated. Protestantism survived underground in eighteenth-century France and was once more officially tolerated on the eve of the Revolution.

See also Bèze, Théodore de ; Bible ; Calvin, John ; Calvinism ; Coligny Family ; Condé Family ; Gallicanism ; La Rochelle ; Lutheranism ; Martyrs and Martyrology ; Nantes, Edict of ; Reformation, Protestant ; Resistance, Theory of ; St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre ; Wars of Religion, French .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français, and the equivalent British Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland are an indispensable starting point for all those wishing to trace their Huguenot ancestry.

Benedict, Philip. The Faith and Fortunes of France's Huguenots, 1600–1685. St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History. Aldershot, U.K., and Burlington, Vt., 2001.

Butler, Jon. The Huguenots in America: A Refugee People in New World Society. Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1983.

Garrisson, Janine. Les Protestants au XVIe siècle. Paris, 1988.

Gray, Janet. "The Origin of the Word Huguenot." Sixteenth Century Journal 14, no. 3 (1983): 349–359.

Greengrass, M. The French Reformation. Oxford, 1987.

Gwynn, Robin D. Huguenot Heritage: The History and Contribution of the Huguenots in Britain. London, 1985.

Kingdon, Robert McCune. Geneva and the Coming of the Wars of Religion in France, 1555–1563. Travaux d'humanisme et renaissance, vol. 22. Geneva, 1956.

——. Geneva and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement, 1564–1572. Travaux d'humanisme et renaissance, vol. 92. Geneva, 1967.

Léonard, Émile G. A History of Protestantism. Edited by H. H. Rowley. 2 vols. London, 1965–1967.

Magdelaine, Marie, and R. von Thadden, eds. Le refuge huguenot (1685–1985). Paris, 1985.

Prestwich, Menna, ed. International Calvinism, 1541–1715. Oxford, 1985.

Wolff, Philippe, ed. Histoire des protestants en France, de la réforme àlarévolution. Toulouse, 1977.

Mark Greengrass

Huguenots

Sources

Early French Protestants. The migration of French Protestants to America was closely tied to the religious climate in France. The Edict of Nantes, promulgated in 1598 and revoked in 1685, guaranteed limited religious toleration for Protestants. Even before the Edict of Nantes, however, some individuals close to the government realized that Protestants might be in danger. As early as the 1560s French Huguenots looked to the New World as a potential area for settlement. Unfortunately, they chose places claimed by Spain and were thus seen as threats by the Spanish. In 1562 a small group built Charles fort on what is now Parris Island, South Carolina, but abandoned the site shortly thereafter. In 1564–1565, 900 Huguenots tried to establish a colony near what is now Jacksonville, Florida. They were discovered and routed by a Spanish fleet, thus ending French Protestant attempts to set up their own separate colonies. Those who came to America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, after toleration was abolished, would join already ongoing English colonies.

Revocation. In 1589 Henry of Navarre, a Protestant, became a Roman Catholic and was then crowned Henry IV of France. That same year he tried to protect his Protestant subjects by giving them some limited freedoms through the Edict of Nantes, but French Protestantism was not really safe, especially after Henry died. During the seventeenth century Protestants faced growing restrictions and by 1675 outright suppression. Many had already converted to Roman Catholicism. Louis XIV brought an official end to French Protestantism when in 1685 he revoked the Edict of Nantes and sent troops to Protestant villages. Ministers were forced either to convert or leave. By the time Louis XIV died in 1715 there were few Protestants in France. Most had become Catholics, at least outwardly, while maybe some 160,000 fled—no official figures were kept. Emigrés went first to Protestant countries in Europe: German principalities, the Netherlands, and England. In these places the exiles found life hard and sometimes, as in England, encountered prejudice. Perhaps because of these problems, most of those who would migrate to America came from the Huguenot communities in England.

Northern Colonies. The Huguenots were not the first French Protestants to settle in the northern colonies. In New Amsterdam the first settlers had been Walloons, French speakers from what is now Belgium. A small number of families from the Channel Islands, which lie between France and England, had also come to New England. But the real French migration began after 1680. New England had perhaps 200 Huguenot men, women, and children in 1700. New York had a larger population, one capable of creating a French church, the Eglise Françoise à la Nouvelle York, in 1688. By 1695 there were about 800 French Huguenots in New York, some 300 of which probably lived in New York City.

Southern Colonies. As in the northern colonies, there were some small clusters of French speakers such as those in Manakin, Virginia, but the majority stayed together in larger groups. South Carolina provided a home for French Protestants in the South, and by 1697 there were 450 in that colony. About 45 percent lived in Charleston, and the rest populated three settlements in the countryside. Immigration to South Carolina was not an accident. The Carolina proprietors advertised their colony in pamphlets, boasting that “for salubrity of Air, Fertility of Soyl, for the Luxuriant and Indulgent Blessings of Nature, [travelers’ accounts] justly rendered Carolina Famous.” Perhaps it was this kind of tract, translated into French, that lured Pierre Giton to leave Germany with his mother, brother, and sister, and after stops in Amsterdam and London, board a ship for Charleston. South Carolina proved to be not quite the paradise promised. His mother and brother died of disease within a year and a half. The sister recalled “sickness, pestilence, famine, poverty,” and hard labor, yet in the end she survived and apparently prospered. The establishing of French churches in the colony must have helped to ease the transition from Europe to America.

Assimilation. The Huguenots were among the first ethnically discrete groups to migrate to the British colonies, but they did not keep their French identity for long. Those, such as Philip L’Anglois, who lived in Salem, Massachusetts, with few other Frenchmen around him, Anglicized their names: Philip L’Anglois became Philip English. In both New York and South Carolina, Huguenot cohesion had eroded by 1710. Both men and women married non-Huguenots and joined other churches, especially the Church of England. New Yorkers elected the wealthy Huguenot Stephen De Lancey assistant alderman as early as 1691. His family would become one of the most powerful in eighteenth-century New York, with James De Lancey serving as both a supreme court justice and lieutenant governor. In South Carolina some Huguenots such as Jean Boyd and Benjamin God in sat in the Commons House of Assembly, South Carolina’s house of representatives. In 1710 the merchant Isaac Masyck asked the colony’s governor to be his daughter’s godfather. By the time of the American Revolution, Huguenots were known by their French names, but in most other ways they were no different from English colonists.

Sources

Jon Butler, The Huguenots in America: A Refugee People in New World Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983);

Joyce D. Goodfriend, Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664–1730 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992).

HUGUENOTS

HUGUENOTS. The term "Huguenot," of unknown origin, was first applied to French Calvinists during the religious struggles of the sixteenth century. Henry IV granted religious toleration to his Protestant subjects by the Edict of Nantes (1598), but Louis XIV revoked it in 1685. During periods of persecution, approximately 300,000 French Protestants fled to Prussia, Switzerland, Holland, England, and the Dutch and English colonies. Fewer than 3,000 Huguenot refugees arrived in America before 1710. In America, the label Huguenot came to refer more broadly to French-speaking Calvinists, whether French, Swiss, or Walloon.

Attempted Huguenot settlements in Florida and South Carolina in 1562 and 1564 failed. In 1623, Huguenots, largely Walloons, settled New Amsterdam. Peter Minuit, the first director general of New Netherland, was a Walloon, and Jean Vigne, the first white child born on Manhattan Island, was French and probably Huguenot. Fort Orange (Albany), Kingston, and New Paltz in New York were Huguenot settlements. Some 200 or 300 Huguenot families came to Boston after Louis XIV's Dragonnades, which persecuted Protestants by billeting unruly soldiers in their homes.

After 1685, increasing numbers of Huguenots came to America, settling in Rhode Island, in Hartford and Mil-ford in Connecticut, and in New Rochelle, New York. They mingled with other settlers in Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, where they were called Dutchmen and confused with German settlers. In Virginia, the first of the "French Protestant Refugees," as the name appears officially in Virginia records, was Nicholas Martiau. He arrived before 1620 and is the earliest known Virginia ancestor of George Washington. The shipload coming to of Manakintowne on 23 July 1700, and two more shiploads in the same year, made up the largest single settlement of Huguenots in America. King William Parish was set aside for them, but this group with its local church and pastor was absorbed into the Church of England. The parishioners soon intermarried with the English people of the colony.

Huguenots began coming to South Carolina in 1670, played a large part in the settlement of Charleston in 1680, and by 1687 had established four settlements largely or wholly French: Jamestown on the Santee River, the "Orange Quarter" on the Cooper River, Saint-John's in Berkeley County, and Charleston. In 1732, 360 French-Swiss Protestants settled Purysburg on the Savannah River, and in 1764 the last French colony was founded, New Bordeaux in Abbeville County.

Traditionally, historians have emphasized the rapid assimilation of the Huguenots into American society, linguistically, religiously, and economically. The most recent interpretations are more circumspect. While the Huguenots did indeed learn English, conform to Anglicanism, and contract exogamous marriages, such behavior may better be described as acculturation, in that Huguenot values influenced the evolution of the dominant Anglo-American culture. The process of assimilation may also have been more gradual than earlier historians believed. Huguenots transacted public business in English but continued to use French in private correspondence through most of the eighteenth century. Among merchant families, exogamous marriages served to maintain and expand their place within the Atlantic commercial network known as the Protestant International. Calvinist religious practices persisted despite conformity, giving a low-church tone to the Church of England.

The late nineteenth century witnessed a revival of Huguenot ethnicity as exemplified in the creation of Huguenot heritage societies and the adoption of a Huguenot flag (a Maltese cross and dove against a blue background). In Charleston at the end of the twentieth century, Huguenot descendants continued to take pride in their Huguenot church, the only one still in existence in America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bosher, John F. "Huguenot Merchants and the Protestant International in the Seventeenth Century." William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 52 (January 1995): 77–102.

Butler, Jon. The Huguenots in America: A Refugee People in New World Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983.

Van Ruymbeke, Bertrand. "The Huguenots of Proprietary South Carolina: Patterns of Migration and Settlement." In Money, Trade and Power: The Evolution of South Carolina's Plantation System. Edited by Jack P. Greene, Rosemary Brana-Shute, and Randy J. Sparks. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001.

LeslieChoquette

James ElliottWalmsley

See alsoNew Amsterdam ; Walloons .

Huguenots , French Protestants, followers of John Calvin . The term is derived from the German Eidgenossen, meaning sworn companions or confederates.

Origins

Prior to Calvin's publication in 1536 of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, a reform movement already existed in France. Despite persecution, the movement grew. Under King Henry II reprisals became more severe. Nevertheless, in 1559, the first French national synod was held, and a Presbyterian church modeled on Calvin's reform in Geneva was founded. The adherence of a large number of the nobility to the movement gave it political meaning and added fuel to persecution.

Wars of Religion and the Edict of Nantes

The conspiracy of Amboise (1560; see Amboise, conspiracy of ) during the reign of King Francis II inflamed both Roman Catholic and Protestant sentiment. This, along with political rivalry, particularly among the Bourbons and the Guises , precipitated the Wars of Religion (1562-98; see Religion, Wars of ). Despite such heavy blows to the Huguenots as the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day (1572), the formation of the Catholic League (see League ), and the intervention of Spain (1589-98) against the Protestant heir to the throne, the Bourbon Henry IV , the Protestants were ultimately victorious. Their success was due largely to their unity under such admirable leaders as Louis I de Condé (see under Condé , family), Gaspard de Coligny , Jeanne d'Albret , and her son, Henry IV.

In 1598, Henry IV, by issuing the Edict of Nantes (see Nantes, Edict of ), established Protestantism in 200 towns, proclaimed freedom of worship, and allowed substantial political independence. During the next 50 years, more and more skilled artisans and members of the bourgeoisie became Huguenots, who thus constituted one of the most industrious and economically advanced elements in French society.

Suppression

In the reign of King Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu decided to suppress Protestant political privileges. An uprising (1621-22) against the introduction of Catholicism in Béarn was put down by Richelieu, and the Protestants lost all the strongholds given to them under the Edict of Nantes, except Montauban and La Rochelle. Led by Henri de Rohan and Benjamin de Soubise , the Huguenots revolted again in 1625 and in 1627. La Rochelle was captured (1628) by Richelieu after a 14-month siege, during which King Charles I of England attempted to send some aid to the Protestant defenders. The Peace of Alais (1629) stripped the Huguenots of all political power but assured them of continued religious tolerance.

Cardinal Mazarin continued Richelieu's policy, but King Louis XIV, urged by the French Catholic clergy, moved to suppress the dissident religion. Conversion was encouraged; the Edict of Nantes was interpreted in the strictest way possible; and dragoons were quartered in the homes of Huguenots (see dragonnades ). Finally, in 1685, the Edict of Nantes was revoked.

This act had disastrous results. Entire provinces were depopulated as countless Huguenots fled to England, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and America. The only important fragment of Huguenots left in France was in the Cévennes, where the war of the Camisards (1702-10) broke out. In 1787, Louis XVI allowed the Huguenots tolerance, and in Dec., 1789, the revolutionary National Assembly restored their civil rights. Full religious freedom was not attained until church and state were separated in 1905.

Bibliography

See history by H. M. Baird (6 vol., 1879-95); G. A. Rothrock, The Huguenots (1979); N. M. Sutherland, The Huguenot Struggle for Recognition (1980); R. D. Gwynn, Huguenot Heritage (1985).

Huguenots, a term of uncertain origin, were French-speaking (and some Walloon-speaking) protestants of Calvinistic temper, who fled from two centuries of persecution to seek asylum and freedom of worship in countries more sympathetic to Reformation practices. After the St Bartholomew's Day massacre (1572), the first wave of refugees to Britain were received at already established French churches in London, Canterbury, and Norwich, but hopes that their exile would be short soon faded. Relative quiet in France lasted only until 1661, when there commenced a steady erosion of privileges, culminating in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), after which the trickle of emigrés became a flood, then a torrent. Some 40,000–50,000 Huguenots are estimated to have settled in England, the majority in London (those associated with the silk trade around Spitalfields, professional families in Leicester Fields/Soho) but other communities in East Anglia, the south/south-west, and at Edinburgh; 10,000 are estimated to have settled in Ireland.

A distinct minority element, but deriving much support from their close-knit communities and their faith, they proved highly-motivated, productive, and a considerable economic asset to their new host nation, though sympathetic acceptance was not universal, since their craft innovations and competition were sometimes resented. Involvement in clothing and textiles (especially silks), luxury trades like goldsmithing, watchmaking, glassware, and cabinetry, and the introduction of white paper were complemented by professional expertise in law, banking and insurance, education, and the armed forces, and contributions to the arts and sciences, and freemasonry. Integration and assimilation generally took several generations, though a few refugees migrated on to America. Today only one French church remains in London, but Huguenot names such as Courtauld and Olivier are familiar to all, and Huguenot descendants retain great respect for their forebears.

A. S. Hargreaves

Huguenots, French Protestants granted religious toleration under the Edict of Nantes (1598), but in the late 17th century subject to increasing persecution, culminating in 1685 in the revocation of the edict and the flight of many Huguenots from France. A small Huguenot community already existed in Dublin by 1665, when a chapel in St Patrick's cathedral was set aside for their use. A more substantial immigration, involving an estimated 10,000 persons, took place in the 1690s. Twenty‐one Huguenot communities were established, of which the most notable, consisting mainly of veterans of the Huguenot regiments in the Williamite army (see williamite war), was on the earl of Galway's estate at Portarlington, Queen's County (Laois). At its peak, in 1703, the colony had 489 residents. By 1720 this had fallen to only 205. However, the French character of Portarlington was still evident to visitors up to the end of the 18th century, and the town continued even longer to be noted as the site of several genteel boarding schools. Near Lisburn Louis Crommelin and other Huguenots contributed to the emerging Ulster linen trade, while in Dublin the La Touche family achieved prominence both in banking and in political life. Some Huguenot congregations adopted the liturgy of the Church of Ireland. Others insisted on maintaining their own forms, at the price of incurring some hostility from the established church, and being denied the financial assistance which the state gave to conformist congregations.

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.

Huguenots. (poss. from the name Hugues, or Swiss Eidgnosse, ‘confederate’). French Calvinists. As Calvinism spread rapidly in France during the 1540s, so persecution increased, especially under Henry II (1547–59). On his death, a more confused political situation ensued, leading to civil war. Militant Catholics (above all the family of the Guises) refused compromise: the massacre of St Bartholomew's Day (1572) was made the more repugnant by the fact that Protestant leaders had been invited to Paris to celebrate the marriage of a Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre, to a Catholic, Margaret, sister of Charles IX. The reconciliation which that event might have introduced was nevertheless brought near by the accession of Henry, who turned Catholic to gain the throne (hence the saying of himself or perhaps of his minister Sully, ‘Paris vaut bien une messe’, ‘Paris is well worth a mass’). He ended the civil war, and by the Edict of Nantes, in 1598, he extended toleration to the Huguenots. In 1685, the Edict of Nantes was revoked. The ensuing Camisard revolt persisted for twenty years, but again was suppressed with great violence. The differing groups were largely united in 1938 in the Reformed Church of France.

Huguenot In the 16th and 17th centuries, a French Protestant who followed the beliefs of CALVIN. By 1561 there were 2000 Calvinist churches in France and the Huguenots had become a political faction that seemed to threaten the state. Persecution followed and during the FRENCH WARS OF RELIGION the Huguenots fought eight civil wars against the Catholic establishment and triumphed when, by the Edict of NANTES in 1598, HENRY IV gave them liberty of worship and a ‘state within a state’. Their numbers grew, especially among merchants and skilled artisans, until they were again persecuted. The centre of their resistance in 1627 was in the town of La Rochelle, which the RICHELIEU government had to besiege for over a year before capturing it. In 1685 the Edict was revoked; many thousands of Huguenots fled to England, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Brandenburg, some settling as far away as North America and the Cape of Good Hope. All these places were to benefit from their skill in craftmanship and trade, particularly as silk-weavers and silversmiths.

Huguenots, a term of uncertain origin, were French‐speaking (and some Walloon‐speaking) protestants of Calvinistic temper, who fled from two centuries of persecution to seek asylum in countries more sympathetic to Reformation practices. After the St Bartholomew's Day massacre (1572), the first wave of refugees to Britain were received at already established French churches in London, Canterbury, and Norwich. Relative quiet in France lasted only until 1661, when there commenced a steady erosion of privileges, culminating in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), after which the trickle of émigrés became a flood, then a raging torrent. Some 40,000–50,000 Huguenots are estimated to have settled in England, the majority in London. They proved highly motivated, productive, and a considerable economic asset to their new host nation. Today only one French church remains in London, but Huguenot names such as Courtauld and Olivier are familiar to all.

Huguenots French Protestants who arose in Roman Catholic France during the Reformation and suffered persecution. In 1559, a national synod of Huguenot congregations adopted an ecclesiastical structure highly influenced by John Calvin. During the Wars of Religion (1562–98), Huguenots continued to face persecution and thousands died. Henry IV, a Huguenot, came to the throne in 1589 and, despite adopting the Roman Catholic faith in 1593, promulgated the Edict of Nantes (1598) that recognized Catholicism as the official religion but gave Huguenots certain rights. In 1685 Louis XIV revoked the edict, and thousands of Huguenots fled France. In 1789, their civil rights were restored and the Code Napoléon (1804) later guaranteed religious equality.

Huguenots, French Protestants, whose church was Calvinistic in doctrine and Presbyterian in government. They were bitterly persecuted until the Edict of Nantes granted them freedom of worship (1598). Upon its revocation (1685), many of them fled to America. Some had previously made settlements in Florida and South Carolina, and many of the settlers of New Amsterdam were Huguenots. They became an important element in the society of Virginia and South Carolina, and also settled in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The only surviving church is in Charlestown.

Huguenot a French Protestant of the 16th–17th centuries. Largely Calvinist, the Huguenots suffered severe persecution at the hands of the Catholic majority, and many thousands emigrated from France.

The name is French, an alteration (by association with the name of a Geneva burgomaster, Besançon Hugues) of eiguenot, from Dutch eedgenot, from Swiss German Eidgenoss ‘confederate’, from Eid ‘oath’ + Genoss ‘associate’.

Hu·gue·not / ˈhyoōgəˌnät/ • n. a French Protestant of the 16th–17th centuries. Largely Calvinist, the Huguenots suffered severe persecution at the hands of the Catholic majority, and many thousands emigrated from France.

Huguenot French Protestant. XVI. — F., alt., by assim. to the name of a Geneva burgomaster, Besançon Hugues, of †eiguinot — Du. eedgenoot — Swiss G. eidgenoss confederate, f. eid OATH + genoss associate.

Huguenot •Mano, piano •Arno, boliviano, Bolzano, Carnot, chicano, guano, Kano, llano, Locarno, Lugano, Marciano, Marrano, meccano, oregano, Pisano, poblano, Romano, siciliano, soprano, Sukarno •Renault, steno, tenno •techno • Fresno • Pernod •ripieno, volcano •albino, bambino, beano, Borodino, Borsalino, cappuccino, casino, chino, Comino, concertino, Filipino, fino, Gino, keno, Ladino, Latino, Leno, maraschino, merino, Monte Cassino, Navarino, neutrino, Pacino, palomino, pecorino, Reno, San Marino, Sansovino, Torino, Trevino, Valentino, vino, Zeno •minnow, winnow •Llandudno • Gobineau • domino •Martineau •lino, rhino, wino •tonneau • Grodno •Livorno, porno •Mezzogiorno •cui bono?, kimono, Mono, no-no, phono •Bruno, Gounod, Juneau, Juno, Uno •Huguenot • pompano •Brno, inferno, journo, Salerno, Sterno