The Edict of Nantes was signed in April 1598 by King Henry IV and granted the minority Calvinist Protestants of France, also known as Huguenots, substantial rights in the nation, which was predominantly Catholic.
The Huguenots were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Besançon Hugues (1491–1532), was in common use by the mid-16th century. Huguenot was frequently used in reference to those of the Reformed Church of France from the time of the Protestant Reformation. By contrast, the Protestant populations of eastern France, in Alsace, Moselle, and Montbéliard, were mainly Lutherans.
The Waldensians, also known as Waldenses, Vallenses, Valdesi, or Vaudois, are adherents of a church tradition that began as an ascetic movement within Western Christianity before the Reformation. Originally known as the Poor of Lyon in the late twelfth century, the movement spread to the Cottian Alps in what is today France and Italy. The founding of the Waldensians is attributed to Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant who gave away his property around 1173, preaching apostolic poverty as the way to perfection.
The Edict of Fontainebleau was an edict issued by French King Louis XIV and is also known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Edict of Nantes (1598) had granted Huguenots the right to practice their religion without state persecution. Protestants had lost their independence in places of refuge under Cardinal Richelieu on account of their supposed insubordination, but they continued to live in comparative security and political contentment. From the outset, religious toleration in France had been a royal, rather than popular, policy.
Camisards were Huguenots of the rugged and isolated Cévennes region and the neighbouring Vaunage in southern France. In the early 1700s, they raised a resistance against the persecutions which followed Louis XIV's Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, making Protestantism illegal. The Camisards operated throughout the mainly Protestant Cévennes and Vaunage regions including parts of the Camargue around Aigues Mortes. The revolt broke out in 1702, with the worst of the fighting continuing until 1704, then skirmishes until 1710 and a final peace by 1715. The Edict of Tolerance was not finally signed until 1787.
The Dragonnades were a French government policy instituted by King Louis XIV in 1681 to intimidate Huguenot (Protestant) families into converting to Catholicism. This involved the billeting of ill-disciplined dragoons in Protestant households with implied permission to abuse the inhabitants and destroy or steal their possessions. The soldiers employed in this role were satirized as "missionary dragoons".
Protestantism originated from the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The term Protestant comes from the Protestation at Speyer in 1529, where the nobility protested against enforcement of the Edict of Worms which subjected advocates of Lutheranism to forfeit of all their property. However, the theological underpinnings go back much further, as Protestant theologians of the time cited both Church Fathers and the Apostles to justify their choices and formulations. The earliest origin of Protestantism is controversial; with some Protestants today claiming origin back to people in the early church deemed heretical such as Jovinian and Vigilantius.
The Reformed branch of Protestantism in Switzerland was started in Zürich by Huldrych Zwingli and spread within a few years to Basel, Bern, St. Gallen,(Joachim Vadian), to cities in southern Germany and via Alsace to France.
The Reformed Church of France was the main Protestant denomination in France with a Calvinist orientation that could be traced back directly to John Calvin. In 2013, the Church merged with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in France to form the United Protestant Church of France.
Antoine Court was a French reformer called the "Restorer of Protestantism in France." He was born in Villeneuve-de-Berg, in Languedoc, on 27 March 1696, although at least one source lists a different date. His parents were peasants, adherents of the Reformed church, which was at the time a target of state persecution following the 1685 Edict of Fontainebleau.
The Waldensian Evangelical Church is a Protestant denomination active in Italy and Switzerland that was independent until it united with the Methodist Evangelical Church in Italy in the Union of Methodist and Waldensian Churches. Founded in the 12th century by Peter Waldo as a proto-Protestant group, since the 16th century Reformation it has adopted Calvinist theology and blended into the wider Calvinist tradition. It is one of several Protestant denominations with pre-Reformation roots, and is appraised by various denominations of Protestantism as its major successor.
The Huguenot Church, also called the French Huguenot Church or the French Protestant Church, is a Gothic Revival church located at 136 Church Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Built in 1844 and designed by architect Edward Brickell White, it is the oldest Gothic Revival church in South Carolina, and has been designated a National Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The congregation it serves traces its origins to the 1680s, and is the only independent Huguenot church in the United States.
Élie Benoist, was a French Protestant minister, known as a historian of the Edict of Nantes.
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began in the 16th century with the goal of reforming the Catholic Church from perceived errors, abuses, and discrepancies.
The Edict of Versailles, also known as the Edict of Tolerance, was an official act that gave non-Catholics in France the access to civil rights formerly denied to them, which included the right to contract marriages without having to convert to the Catholic faith, but it denied them political rights and public worship. The edict was signed by King Louis XVI on 7 November 1787, and registered in the Parlement of Paris during the Ancien Régime on 29 January 1788. Its successful enactment was caused by persuasive arguments by prominent French philosophers and literary personalities of the day, including Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot; Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, Americans such as Benjamin Franklin and especially the joint work of Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, minister to Louis XVI, and Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne, spokesman for the Protestant community in France.
The Protestant Reformed Church of Alsace and Lorraine is a Calvinist denomination in Alsace and northeastern Lorraine, France. As a church body, it enjoys the status as an établissement public du culte.
The United Protestant Church of France is the main and largest Protestant church in France, created in 2013 through the unification of the Reformed Church of France and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of France. It is active in all parts of Metropolitan France apart from Alsace and Moselle, where the Union of Protestant Churches of Alsace and Lorraine is established.
The Protestant Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine is a Lutheran church of public-law corporation status in France. The ambit of the EPCAAL comprises congregations in Alsace and the Lorrain Moselle department.
In Protestant usage, a consistory designates certain ruling bodies in various churches. The meaning and the scope of functions varies strongly, also along the separating lines of the Protestant denominations and church bodies.
