Edict Of Nantes Research Articles

French Calvinists and the State, 1830-1852

Most studies on French Calvinism consider only the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Until recent years' scholars have generally ended their works with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 or the passage of the Edict of Toleration in 1787. They have concentrated on the dramatic period of persecution and have not examined the era in which the Reformed Church came back to life. Apart from the works of Poland and Robert the period after 1787 has been mentioned only in very brief surveys or in works on individuals, small geographical areas, or special institutions. The purpose of this article is to help fill the gap by providing a study of church-state relations during the July Monarchy and the Second Republic. One of the most important aids to the revival of the Reformed movement between 1830 and 1852 was the encouragement of the state. Both the July Monarchy and the Second Republic approved increases in the number of pastors and supported church construction, because both regimes believed that extension of religious influence would contribute to the maintenance of order. At the same time these regimes discouraged the spread of Calvinism by hindering evangelization. When Calvinist ministers tried to win new converts and stirred up controversy the state quickly stepped in to prohibit agitation that might disturb the peace.

The Limits of Toleration in Sixteenth-century France

In the course of defending the rather unpopular Edict of Nantes, one apologist deemed it necessary to calm the fears of his fellow Catholics: ‘The so-called reformed religion', he wrote, referring to the Calvinist faith, ‘is not to be approved in France, but only tolerated; thus it is that the exercise of this religion alone, along with the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion, is permitted.' The writer then assured his readers that the edict would not permit other sectarians ‘to live in full license', nor would it ‘open the door to Anabaptists, Lutherans, Adiaphorists, Puritans, Antinomians, Enthusiasts and others, who, after being separated from and having abandoned their true mother, the Church, introduced diverse sects'. These were the words of the arch-royalist Pierre de Belloy, whose Conference des edicts de pacification (1600) has the distinction of being the longest and perhaps the most tedious tract to issue from the toleration controversy of the sixteenth century.

Foucault, Louvois, and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

In assaying responsibility for the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the crescendo of persecution which preceded it, historians have shown rather noteworthy indecisiveness. It would seem that almost every member of Louis XIV's inner circle and every possible combination of individuals within that select group have been stigmatized at one time or another by some memoirist or historian for his part in the events of 1685. Louvois, Le Tellier, Châteauneuf, Harlay, Seignelay, Fr. La Chaise, Mme. de Maintenon, and others have had their reputations alternately blackened and whitewashed, or restored to a fairly satisfactory shade of gray. The Grand Monarch himself has been portrayed both as the innocent victim of unscrupulous and misleading advisers and as the archfanatic in an entourage of fanatics.

Tieck's Aufruhr in den Cevennen

THERE are dependable authorities who contend that had John Calvin (1508-1564) lived longer, France might have gone through a reformation equal in kind, compass, and duration to the Reformation in Germany. But he died when only fifty-five years of age. Following his death, Catholic France saw the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, the Edict of Nantes issued by Henry IV in 1598, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and that bloodshedding revolt of the Protestant Camisards' in southern France early in the eighteenth century. Out of this last incident Ludwig Tieck drew the material for his first historical novel: Der Aufruhr in den Cevene nen. Begun in 1820, it was not finished until 1826; in truth it was never finished; it is a fragment. In 1845 it was translated into English under the caption, The Rebellion in the Cevennes. This work, a pivotal one in Tieck's life, has been referred to many times in a casual way. Let us look at it somewhat in detail, and as a study in suggestions. Its merit no one can deny; its possibilities as an undergraduate text leap to the fore on first reading; its place in Tieck's evolution is unique.

Christiaan Huygens

Christiaaa Huygens was the son of a man who has been called “the most brilliant figure in Dutch literary history,” and be himself is characterized by Cajori as being “the prince of philosophers in Holland, and one of the greatest scientists of the seventeenth century.” His training was in law and in mathematics. His chief work,' as we shall see, was in mathematics, astronomy, and physics. His father bad spent some time in England in the reign of James I: Huygens went to London in 1663 when he was made a member of the Royal Society, and again in 1689 following the publication of Newton's Principia. In 1665-66 Huygens went to Paris at the invitation of the king but he returned to Holland in 1681 when the revocation of the Edict of Nantes removed the measure of protection which protestants had enjoyed in France for nearly a century.

Innocent XI and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Louis O'Brien

<i>Innocent XI and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes</i>. Louis O'Brien

Some Economic Factors in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

Some Economic Factors in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

“The edict of Nantes.”

“The edict of Nantes.”

Revocation of the edict of Nantes

Revocation of the edict of Nantes

Revocation of the edict of Nantes

Revocation of the edict of Nantes

Revocation of the edict of nantes

Revocation of the edict of nantes

Revocation of the edict of Nantes

Revocation of the edict of Nantes