Huguenot
In the
16th and
17th centuries, the name of
Huguenots came to apply to members of the
Protestant Reformed Church of
France, or historically as the French
Calvinists.
Used originally as a term of derision, the derivation of the name
Huguenot remains uncertain. It may have been based on the name
Besançon Hugues, or a French corruption of the German word
Eidgenosse, meaning a Swiss person - Geneva, Switzerland was
John Calvin's adopted home and the center of the Calvinist movement. In
Geneva, Hugues was the leader of the "Confederate Party," so called because it favored an
alliance between the city-state of Geneva and the
Swiss Confederation. This theory of origin has support from the fact that the label
Huguenot was first applied in France to those conspirators (all of them aristocratic members of the Reformed Church) involved in the
Amboise plot of 1560: a foiled attempt to usurp
power in France from the influential
House of Guise, a move which would have had the side-effect of fostering relations with the Swiss. Thus,
Hugues plus
eidgenot becomes
Huguenot, with the intention of associating the
Protestant cause with some very unpopular politics.
Another theory is offered by O.I.A. Roche, who writes in his book
The Days of the Upright, A History of the Huguenots that "Huguenot" is
"a combination of a Flemish and a German word. In the Flemish corner of France, Bible students who gathered in each other's houses to study secretly were called
Huis Genooten, or 'house fellows,' while on the Swiss and German borders they were termed
Eid Genossen, or 'oath fellows,' that is, persons bound to each other by an oath. Gallicized into 'Huguenot,' often used deprecatingly, the word became, during two and a half centuries of terror and triumph, a badge of enduring honor and courage."
Still another source for the name is:"a combination of to 2 words: the French "Hugues" and the German "Not" or plural "Noten", literally meaning "the needing ones of Hugues".
Hugues Capet king of France was a supposed very noble man who ever respected people's dignity and lives, and who was in conflict with the Pope, and even when its regine was very before the Reform times, the protestant Frenchmen always thought that if he were still ruling France by Reform times, they will not be presecuted as they were. So those who went to Germany escaping death, were then called "Huguesnoten" or "Huguenoten".
Huguenot predecessors included the pro-reform and
Gallican Roman Catholics, like
Jacques Lefevre. Later, Huguenots followed the
Lutheran movement, and finally,
Calvinism.
They shared
John Calvin's fierce
reformation beliefs which decried the
priesthood,
sacramental theology, and doctrines of the
Roman Catholic Church. They believed in salvation as an act of God as much as in creation as an act of God, and thus that only God's
predestined mercy toward the
elect made them fit for salvation.
Some see this dual emphasis on creation and on salvation, and God's sovereignty over both, as a cornerstone principle for Huguenot developments in architecture and textiles and other merchandise.
Criticisms of Roman Catholic Church
Above all, Huguenots became known for their fiery criticisms of worship as performed in the Roman Catholic Church, in particular the focus on ritual and what seemed an obsession with death and the dead. They believed the
ritual, images,
saints,
pilgrimages,
prayers, and
hierarchy of the Catholic Church did not help anyone toward
redemption. They saw Christian faith as something to be expressed in a strict and godly life, in obedience to Biblical laws, out of gratitude for God's mercy.
Like other Protestants of the time, they felt that the Roman church needed radical cleansing of its impurities, and that the
Pope represented a worldly kingdom, which sat in mocking tyranny over the things of God, and was ultimately doomed. Rhetoric like this became more fierce as events unfolded, and stirred up the hostility of the Catholic establishment.
Violently opposed to the Catholic Church, the Huguenots attacked images,
monasticism, and church buildings. Most of the cities in which the Huguenots gained a hold saw
iconoclast attacks, in which altars and images in churches, and sometimes the buildings themselves were torn down.
Bourges,
Montauban and
Orleans suffered particularly.
Reform and Growth
Huguenots faced periodic persecution from the outset of the Reformation; but
Francis I (reigned 1515–1547) initially protected them from
Parlementary measures designed for their extermination. The
Affair of the Placards of 1534 changed the king's posture toward the Huguenots: he stepped away from restraining persecution of the movement.
Huguenot numbers grew rapidly between
1555 and
1562, chiefly amongst the nobles and city-dwellers. During this time, their opponents first dubbed the Protestants
Huguenots; but they called themselves
reformés, "Reformed". They organized their first national synod in 1558, in Paris.
By 1562, they had a total membership estimated at least a million, especially numerous in the southern and central parts of the country. The Huguenots in France likely peaked in number at approximately two million, compared to approximately sixteen million Catholics during the same period.
In reaction to the growing Huguenot influence, and the aforementioned excesses of Protestant zeal, Catholic violence against them grew, at the same time that concessions and edicts of toleration became more liberal.
In
1561, the
Edict of Orléans, for example, declared an end to the persecution; and the
Edict of Saint-Germain recognized them for the first time (
January 17,
1562); but these measures disguised the growing strain of relations between Protestant and Catholic.
Civil Wars
Tensions led to eight
civil wars, interrupted by periods of relative calm, between 1562 and 1598. With each break in peace, the Huguenots' trust in the Catholic throne diminished, and the violence became more severe, and Protestant demands became more grand, until a lasting cessation of open hostility finally occurred in 1598.
The wars gradually took on a dynastic character, developing into an extended feud between the Houses of
Bourbon and
Guise, which — in addition to holding rival religious views — both staked a claim to the French throne. The crown, occupied by the House of
Valois, generally supported the Catholic side, but on occasion switched over to the Protestant cause when politically expedient.
The French Wars of Religion
The
French Wars of Religion began with a massacre at
Wassy on
March 1, 1562, in which at least 30 (some sympathetic sources say 1000 or more) Huguenots were killed, and about 200 were wounded.
The Huguenots transformed themselves into a definitive political movement thereafter. Protestant preachers rallied a considerable army and a formidable cavalry, which came under the leadership of Admiral
Gaspard de Coligny.
Henry of Navarre and the House of Bourbon allied themselves to the Huguenots, adding wealth and holdings to the Protestant strength, which at its height grew to sixty fortified cities, and posed a serious threat to the Catholic crown and Paris over the next three decades.
St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre
In what became known as the
St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of
24 August –
17 September,
1572, Catholics killed thousands of Huguenots in Paris. Similar massacres took place in other towns in the weeks following, with an estimated total death toll of 110,000. An amnesty granted in 1573 pardoned the perpetrators.
Edict of Nantes
The fifth
holy war against the Huguenots began on
February 23,
1574. The conflict continued periodically until
1598, when Henry of Navarre, having converted to Catholicism and become King of France as
Henry IV, issued the
Edict of Nantes. The Edict granted the Protestants equality with Catholics under the throne and a degree of religious and political freedom within their domains. The Edict simultaneously protected Catholic interests by discouraging the founding of new Protestant churches in the Catholic-controlled regions.
With the proclamation of the Edict of Nantes, and the subsequent protection of Huguenot rights, pressures to leave France abated, as did further attempts at colonization. However, under King
Louis XIV (reigned 1643–1715), chief minister
Cardinal Mazarin (who held real power during the king's minority up to his death in
1661) resumed persecution of the Protestants using soldiers to inflict
dragonnades that made life so intolerable that many fled.
Edict of Fontainebleau
The king revoked the "irrevocable"
Edict of Nantes in
1685 and declared Protestantism illegal with the
Edict of Fontainebleau. After this, huge numbers of Huguenots (with estimates ranging from 200,000 to 500,000) fled to surrounding Protestant countries:
England, the
Netherlands,
Switzerland,
Norway,
Denmark and
Prussia — whose Calvinist Great Elector
Frederick William welcomed them to help rebuild his war-ravaged and underpopulated country.
Early Emigration
The first Huguenots to leave France seeking freedom from prosecution had done so years earlier under the leadership of
Jean Ribault in
1562. The group ended up establishing the small colony of
Ft. Caroline, on the banks of the
St. Johns River, in what is today
Jacksonville, Florida.
This settlement was the first attempt at any permanent European settlement in the present-day
United States. However, the group survived only a short time; a Spanish colony established shortly thereafter at
St. Augustine wiped out the French in
1565.
Settlement in South Africa
On
December 31,
1687 a band of Huguenots set sail from France to the colony at the
Cape of Good Hope,
South Africa. Individual Huguenots settled at the
Cape of Good Hope from as early as 1671 and an organized, large scale emigration of Huguenots to the
Cape of Good Hope took place during 1688 and 1689.
Many of these settlers chose as their home an area called Franschhoek, Dutch for French Corner, in the present day
Western Cape provice of
South Africa. A large monument to commemorate the arrival of the Huguenots in
South Africa was inaugurated on 7 April 1948 at Franschhoek.
Many of the farms in the
Western Cape province in
South Africa still bear French names and there are many families, today mostly
Afrikaans speaking, whose surnames bear witness to their French Huguenot ancestry. Examples of these are Joubert, du Toit, de Villiers, Viljoen, Theron, du Plessis and Labuschagne amongst others, which are all common surnames in present day
South Africa.
Settlement in North America
Barred from settling in
New France, many Huguenots moved instead to the Dutch colony
New Netherland later incorporated into New York and New Jersey and the
13 colonies of Great Britain in
North America, the first in
1624.
Huguenot immigrants founded
New Paltz, New York, where is now located the oldest street in America with the original stone houses,
New Rochelle, New York (named after
La Rochelle in France).
Some of the settlers chose the
Virginia Colony, and formed communities in present-day
Chesterfield County and
Powhatan County just west of
Richmond, Virginia, where their descendants continue to reside. The
Huguenot Memorial Bridge across the
James River was named in their honor, as were many local features including several schools.
Many Huguenots also settled in the area around the current site of
Charleston, South Carolina. In 1685, Rev. Elie Prioleau from the town of Pons in France settled in what was then called Charlestown. He became pastor of the first Huguenot church in North America in that city. The French Protestant (Huguenot) Church of Charleston, which remains independent, is the oldest continuously active Huguenot congregation in the United States today.
Most of the Huguentot congregations in North America merged or affiliated with other Protestant denominations, such the
Presbyterian Church (USA),
United Church of Christ,
Reformed Churches, and the
Reformed Baptists.
See:
The Huguenot Society of America.
Asylum in Britain
An estimated 50,000 Huguenots fled to Britain. A leading Huguenot theologian and writer who led the exiled community in London,
Andre Lortie (or
Andrew Lortie), became known for articulating Huguenot criticism of the
Holy See and
transubstantiation.
Of these refugees, upon landing on the Kent coast, many gravitated towards the (then) hub of the county: Canterbury. To this day there is still a Huguenot Chapel to be found in Canterbury Cathedral, where many Huguenot families were granted asylum. Access can now be gained should your name be derived from any of the French names featured on a tapestry placed on the chapel's outer door.
Huguenot refugees flocked to
Shoreditch,
London in large numbers. They established a major weaving industry in and around
Spitalfields (see
Petticoat Lane and the
Tenterground), and in
Wandsworth. The
Old Truman Brewery, then known as the Black Eagle Brewery, appeared in
1724. The fleeing of Huguenot refugees
Tours,
France had virtually wiped out the great
silk mills they had built.
Many Huguenots settled in Ireland during the
Plantations of Ireland. Some of them fought against the troops of
Louis XIV in the
Williamite war in Ireland, for which they were rewarded with land grants and titles. Some of them took their skills to
Ulster and assisted in the founding of the Irish
linen industry.
Effects
The exodus of Huguenots from France created a kind of
brain drain from which the kingdom would not fully recover for years. The French crown's refusal to allow Protestants to settle in New France was a factor behind that colony's slow population growth, which ultimately led to its conquest by the British. By the time of the
French and Indian War, there may have been more people of French ancestry living in Britain's American colonies than there were in New France.
Frederick the Great of
Prussia, a strong believer in religious tolerance, invited Huguenots to settle in his realms, and a number of their descendants rose to positions of prominence in Prussia. The last Prime Minister of the (East)
German Democratic Republic,
Lothar de Maizière, was a scion of a Huguenot family.
The persecution and flight of the Huguenots greatly damaged the reputation of Louis XIV abroad, particularly in England; the two kingdoms, which had enjoyed peaceful relations prior to
1685, became bitter enemies and fought against each other in a series of wars from
1689 onward.
Persecution of Protestants ended in 1764, and the
French Revolution of 1789 finally made them full-fledged citizens.
Protestants in France today number about 1 million, or about 2% of the population [
1] [
2]. They are most concentrated in the
Cévennes region in the south.
*A third of American Presidents have some proven Huguenot ancestry, as do
Alexander Hamilton,
John Jay, and other leading statesmen, and (according to an oft-repeated belief) one quarter or more of all Englishmen.
*Huguenot refugees in
Prussia are thought to have contributed significantly to the development of the
textile industry in that state.
*In
1924 a commemorative half dollar, known as the
Huguenot-Walloon Half Dollar, was coined in the
United States to celebrate the 300th anniversary of their initial settlement in what is now the United States. One Huguenot colonist was a silversmith named Apollos Rivoire, who would later anglicize his name to
Paul Revere. He would, still later, give his name and his profession to his son,
Paul Revere, the famous
United States revolutionary.
*A neighborhood in
New York City's borough of
Staten Island is named
Huguenot, and the nearby town of
New Rochelle is named after
La Rochelle, a former Huguenot stronghold in France.
French Protestants consider themselves to practice a "reformed" religion (
religion réformée) — which implies that the Catholic religion was in need of reforms. In opposition, French Catholics, when talking in polite terms, traditionally referred to Protestantism as the "allegedly reformed religion" (
religion prétendue réformée, or RPR) — with an obvious pejorative undertone of "pretense".
Other
The word
refugee came into use in the English language to describe the early French protestants seeking
refuge. They subsequently became known as the
Refugees by the locals. French réfugié, from past participle of réfugier, to take refuge, from Old French, from refuge.
The sign of the Huguenot is the
croix huguenote. It is now an official symbol of the
Eglise des protestants reformé (French Protestant church) and Huguenot descendents are proud to display this piece of jewellery as a sign of
reconnaissance (recognition) between them.
*
John Andre,
British Officer and spy
*
Earl W. Bascom,
rodeo cowboy, artist and sculptor
*
Florence Bascom, American
geologist*
Henry Bidleman Bascom, U.S. Congressional
Chaplain, Methodist
Bishop*
Bryant Brooks, Governor of
Wyoming*
Francis Beaufort,
Hydrographer of the
British Admiralty*
William Byrd I, Virginia settler
*
Sarel Cilliers,
Boer Voortrekker*
Joan Crawford, American Actress
*
Davy Crockett, American folk hero
*
Hansie Cronje South African
cricketer
*
Frederik Willem de Klerk President of the Republic of South Africa serving from September 1989 to May 1994
*
James DeLancey, Governor of New York
*
Abraham De Peyster,
Mayor of New York*
Abraham De Peyster,
Loyalist*
Arent Schuyler De Peyster,
Loyalist*
Johannes De Peyster,
Mayor of Albany*G.E.M de Ste. Croix, writer & historian
*
Julia Dale, Hugus
*
Peter Carl Fabergé, Russian jeweller
*
Gustav Fabergé, Russian jeweller
*
Theodor Fontane, German novelist and poet
*
Peter Force, American politician and archivist
*
Philip Freneau, American Poet
*
Adolf Galland, Luftwaffe General and WW2 fighter ace
*
Nicolaus Harnoncourt, Austrian conductor
*
Alexander Hamilton, American Secretary of the Treasury
*[
3]Peter Horry , S.C. Revolutionary War General {Reference only}
*
Benjamin Huger, American General {Confederate}
*
Daniel E. Huger, American politician
*
John Jay, American diplomat
*
Gideon Joubert, Afrikaans science non-fiction author
*
Petrus Jacobus Joubert Boer
commandant-general of the
South African Republic from 1880 to 1900
*
Gustaf de Laval, Swedish engineer and inventor
*
Henry Laurens, American politician
*
John Laurens, American War hero
*
Simon Le Bon, English musician
*
Eugène Terre'Blanche ,South African political activist
*
Sheridan Le Fanu, Irish writer
*
Daniel Myron LeFever, American gunmaker
*
D F Malan South African Prime Minister elected on Apartheid platform
*
Lothar de Maizière, German politician
*
Thomas de Maizière, German politician
*
Seigried Marseille, Luftwaffe General
*
Hans-Joachim Marseille, Luftwaffe ace
*
Arthur Middleton Manigault, American General {Confederate}
*
Francis Marion, American War Hero
*
Charles Manigault Morris, American Navy officer{Confederate}
*
Gouverneur Morris, American Diplomat
*
Beyers Naudé Afrikaner anti Apartheid cleric.
*
Lothar von Arnauld de la Periere Highest scoring Uboat commander of World War I
*
Francois Pienaar Captain of the
Springboks from
26 June 1993 until
10 August 1996*
Frederic Remington, American
artist and
sculptor*
Piet Retief,
Boer Voortrekkers*
Paul Revere, American Silversmith, famous for "Paul Revere's Ride" at the outbreak of the American War of Independence.
*
John Richbourg, American radio announcer
*
John D. Rockefeller, American capitalist
*
Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States
*
Sara Roosevelt, mother of FDR
*
Friedrich Karl von Savigny, German jurist
*
Jedediah Smith, American
explorer *
Charlize Theron, South African actress
*
Anton Friedrich Justus Thibaut, German jurist
*
Henry David Thoreau. American writer
*
Constand Viljoen Former leader of the Freedom Front (1994 - 2001) and SADF general
*
Peter Griffin , self described fictitious Hugoneot
*
Catherine de' Medici*
St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre*
St Peter's Cathedral - official web site*
Huguenot Historical Society*
Huguenot Historical Society Digital Collections
