Huguenot

The Huguenot

A Huguenot is a member of a French Protestant denomination with origins in the 16th or 17th centuries. Historically, Huguenots were French Protestants inspired by the writings of John Calvin (Jean Calvin in French) in the 1530s, who became known by that originally derisive designation by the end of the 16th century. The majority of Huguenots endorsed the Reformed tradition of Protestantism.

The Huguenots were persecuted for their religion and many emigrated to what would become Canada, the UK, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand, as well as other tolerant European nations. Many Americans who are researching their family history find Huguenot ancestors in their lineage. The Huguenot cross is a sign of this lineage, as well as a show of solidarity for people suffering religious persecution all over the world.

Huguenot numbers peaked near an estimated two million by 1562, concentrated mainly in the southern and central parts of France, about one-eighth the number of French Catholics. As Huguenots gained influence and more openly displayed their faith, Catholic hostility grew, in spite of increasingly liberal political concessions and edicts of toleration from the French crown. A series of religious conflicts followed, known as the Wars of Religion, fought intermittently from 1562 to 1598. The wars finally ended with the granting of the Edict of Nantes, which granted the Huguenots substantial religious, political and military autonomy.

Signed by Henry IV of France at Nantes on April 13th, 1598, the edict put a temporary end to the ferocious religious wars between Roman Catholics and Protestants which had torn France apart since the 1560s. Of the numerous assassinations and atrocities carried out by both sides, the most notorious was the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of Protestants in Paris in 1572. The French Calvinists, who were known as Huguenots, were only in a minority in France, but they had created a virtual state within a state and held numerous fortified towns. Now, after skillful persuasion by Catholic diplomats and much hard bargaining, they accepted a document of ninety-two articles granting them a measure of religious toleration as well as social and political equality. Huguenots were to be entitled to worship freely everywhere in France in private, and publicly in some 200 named towns and on the estates of Protestant landowners. They were permitted to inherit property, engage in trade, attend all schools and universities, and be treated in hospitals on the same basis as everyone else. There was a full amnesty for crimes committed during the wars by both sides and in secret articles, signed on May 2nd, the government agreed to pay the Protestant pastors and subsidize the garrisons of some fifty Huguenot fortified towns.

Catholic opponents of the edict were gradually won over and the eventual outcome of what had been virtually a prolonged civil war was the strengthening of the French monarchy, which was able to neutralize the two rival factions. Henry IV, king of the Pyrennean statelet of Navarre, came from a junior branch of the royal Valois dynasty of France. He succeeded to the French throne in 1589 after the murder of his predecessor, Henry III, by a Catholic fanatic. He was the first of the Bourbon kings of France and, though himself a notable Protestant leader, four years after succeeding to the throne he became a Roman Catholic because that was the religion of the great majority of his subjects and, in his famous remark, he considered Paris well worth a mass. Some historians regard the Edict of Nantes as an equally cynical stratagem to draw the Huguenot sting, as in fact it did. Protestantism weakened in France after 1598 until eventually Louis XIV’s revocation of the edict in 1685 led to mass emigration of Huguenots to England and other countries.

Renewed religious warfare in the 1620s caused the political and military privileges of the Huguenots to be abolished following their defeat. They retained the religious provisions of the Edict of Nantes until the rule of Louis XIV, who progressively increased persecution of them until he issued the Edict of Fontainebleau (1685), which abolished all legal recognition of Protestantism in France, and forced the Huguenots to convert. While nearly three-quarters eventually were killed or submitted, roughly 500,000 Huguenots had fled France by the early 18th century.

The bulk of Huguenot émigrés relocated to Protestant European nations such as England, Wales, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, the Dutch Republic, the Electorate of Brandenburg and Electorate of the Palatinate in the Holy Roman Empire, the Duchy of Prussia, the Channel Islands, and Ireland. They also spread beyond Europe to the Dutch Cape Colony in South Africa, the Dutch East Indies, the Caribbean, and several of the English colonies of North America, and Quebec, where they were accepted and allowed to worship freely.

Persecution of Protestants diminished in France after the death of Louis XIV in 1715, and officially ended with the Edict of Versailles, commonly called the Edict of Tolerance, signed by Louis XVI in 1787. Two years later, with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789, Protestants gained equal rights as citizens.

Today, most Huguenots have been assimilated into various societies and cultures, but remnant communities in Alsace and the Cévennes in France and a diaspora of Huguenots in England and French Australians still retain their Huguenot religious tradition. In America, most Huguenot congregations were absorbed by the Church of England, which, during the American Revelation War, became The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, better known as The Episcopal Church.

The Huguenot Cross

The Huguenot cross is a Christian religious symbol originating in France and is one of the more recognizable and popular symbols of the evangelical reformed faith.

It is sometimes asserted that the cross appeared for the first time during the Huguenot Wars (1562-1598) in the South of France.

The symbolism of the Huguenot cross is particularly rich.

• The cross as an eminent symbol of the Christian faith, represents not only the death of Christ but also victory over death and impiety. This is represented also in the Maltese Cross.

• It is boutonné, the eight points symbolizing the eight Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12)

• Between the arms of the cross is the stylized fleur-de-lys (on the French Coat of Arms), each has 3 petals; the total of twelve petals of the fleur-de-lys signify the twelve apostles. Between each fleur-de-lys and the arms of the Maltese Cross with which it is joined, an open space in the form of a heart, the symbol of loyalty, suggests the seal of the French Reformer, John Calvin.

• The pendant dove symbolizes the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:16).In times of persecution a pearl, symbolizing a teardrop, replaced the dove.

The elements of the Huguenot cross mirrored those of the cross of the 1578 Order of the Holy Spirit, the senior chivalric order of France by precedence.