Calvin. History and Reception of a Reformation Week 4. The Spread of Calvinism Sequence 2. Wars of religion. The Refuges in the 16th and 17th centuries Hello and welcome to this sequence, which will focus on the wars of religion and the Refuge phenomenon. The history of religious confrontation, particularly in France, can be roughly divided into four distinct periods. The first period is from 1530 to 1560 approximately. Marc Venard has called it the "reign of the stake," the "period of martyrs." The evangelicals, as they were called -- that is, the partisans of Calvinism -- were persecuted
mercilessly by the French monarchy under both Henry II and his successor, Henry III. The second period begins in 1560 and ends right at the turn of the century. Evangelical churches had succeeded in getting established. They had become a real church, with a real structure. Around the late 1550s-early 1560s, these churches began to come together under the framework of the synod. Yet this period ranks among the darkest in the entire history of France: 40 years of civil strife, 40 years of what people called the "wars of religion." It would be a tedious exercise indeed to try and tally every instance of violent conflict. Let's just say, in short, that several outbreaks of violence were followed by an armistice, which held for a short while, before giving way once again to violent conflict. A 40 year period of internal strife, then, that tore France apart. The violence was often devastating and deadly. One of the most well-known massacres of this period is the so-called "St. Bartholomew's Day massacre" of 1572 directed against the Huguenots of France. The third period is that of the Edict of Nantes. A new king, Henry IV, implemented a change in policy. The former Henry of Navarre, he had been raised Protestant. In order to become king, however, he recanted the faith of his youth and became a Roman Catholic. Henry IV was responsible, in 1598, for the promulgation of the "Edict of Nantes," an attempt on his part to pacify the kingdom of France. Unlike his predecessors, he was successful. Contrary to what has often been claimed, the Edict of Nantes cannot be considered, in my opinion, an edict of tolerance. In a book which I co-edited with Bernard Roussel some years ago, Roussel describes the Edict's purpose as follows: "to coexist in a state of intolerance." Intolerance, indeed, was the order of the day: Catholics did not tolerate Protestants, Protestants did not tolerate Catholics. Hence the need for the monarchy to impose a "civil coexistence" among the warring parties. The Edict of Nantes would later be revoked, in 1685, by Henry IV's grandson Louis XIV. Yet well before its revocation, the Edict had progressively "closed up like a tomb," to use Elisabeth Labrousse's phrase, on the Protestant population. Their rights were gradually eroded, leading ultimately to the Edict's revocation, which marks the beginning of the fourth period -- one in which the practice of Protestantism, or of the "supposedly
Reformed religion," as the monarchy referred to it, was simply illegal in France. What was left for French Protestants to do? They were asked to renounce their faith. Beginning in 1685 and in the years that followed, many did -- quite a number of ministers even renounced their
faith. Those who refused, who wanted to remain loyal to the faith of their parents, were left to choose between clandestinity and exile. Clandestinity took the form, for example, of the "Church of the Desert" in the Cévennes region of southern France. The beginning of the 18th century saw the "War of the Camisards," an insurrectionary resistance movement against Louis XIV himself. As for exile, an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 French Protestants fled the kingdom, even though doing so was forbidden, and moved to Switzerland, Holland, Brandenburg,
England and the New World. The rise of the Reformation in the French-speaking world, then, resulted in several mass population movements. The small city of Geneva experienced this firsthand. As early as the 1540s, as the evangelicals were being persecuted in France, many came to Geneva for refuge. The 1550s saw an enormous wave of refugees arrive in Geneva. (Many of these maritime metaphors can be found in Alfred Perrenoud's book on the population of Geneva.) In 1550, Geneva had a population of 10,000 to 12,000 people. All of a sudden, approximately 5,000 refugees converged on the city-- and this number represents heads of
household only: women and children were not tallied. Over the course a decade, roughly, Geneva saw its population virtually double. Eventually, this influx of people died down. Yet this mass migration helps explain why a portion of Geneva's population grew increasingly hostile to Calvin. In their eyes, these French people, arriving en masse from Calvin's homeland, were doing more than seeking refuge: they were trying to dictate to
Genevans how to behave and how to live. A second wave of refugees resulted from the revoking of the Edict of Nantes (1685). This time, most French Protestants did not flee to Geneva -- and if they did, they stayed there for a short time only -- because the city was being carefully monitored by the French ambassador. They were classified as "residents." Many of them moved to Switzerland and to Brandenburg, where they were welcomed with open arms, the Elector having proclaimed the Edict of Potsdam, in 1685,
in response to the Edict of Nantes' revoking. Other destinations for French refugees included the United Provinces and England. From there, many traveled to the New World. These French refugees, true to their Calvinist roots, brought with them several things. First and foremost, they brought know-how and expertise. Many were artisans skilled in the textile arts or clock-making. They brought military know-how as well. They also carried with them their hostility towards the rulership of France. It is not hard to surmise, then, how gladly those European countries who were adversaries of France welcomed refugees whose principal enemy was none other than
Louis XIV. Furthermore, the French Protestants brought with them an entrepreneurial spirit. Finally, the exodus of French Protestants was a considerable demographic boon for the countries that welcomed them, and created a void which France struggled to make up for. In short, the rise of Brandenburg and Prussia, the flourishing of England and the United Provinces, followed by that of New England and the New World,
were all, in part, consequences of the revoking of the Edict of Nantes. A cynic might even say that Louis XIV unwittingly did a great service to his political enemies. I'd like to relate a story which, though anecdotal, is deeply symbolic of the contribution made by French Protestant refugees to the New World. As I mentioned, many of these refugees were artisans. Among those from the Languedoc region, and the cities of Nîmes and Montpellier in particular, were many masters of the art of dyeing,
including expert manipulators of a dye known as "Genoa blue,"
which they brought with them to the New World. It is this "Genoa blue" which, by linguistic deformation, came to be known in English as "blue jeans" -- the signature garment of the United States (and perhaps the entire Western world)
if there ever was one. Thus we can conclude (facetiously) that had Louis XIV never revoked the Edict of Nantes, blue jeans would not be associated today with the United States. Instead, they would probably be known, under a different name of course, as a typically French product. In short, the revoking of the Edict of Nantes, regardless of how one judges its intent on a human level, was probably the single greatest political and economic mistake Louis XIV ever made. It is this mistake, however, that facilitated and hastened the spread of Calvinist Protestantism to geographic areas outside the French-speaking world -- in particular, to England, Germany and
the New World. We've reached the end of this sequence. Thank you for your attention.
