Posted on 06/19/2009 3:54:08 PM PDT by alpha-8-25-02
Who were the Huguenots?
John Calvin (1509 - 1564), religious reformer. The Huguenots were French Protestants who were members of the Reformed Church which was established in 1550 by John Calvin. The origin of the name Huguenot is uncertain, but dates from approximately 1550 when it was used in court cases against "heretics" (dissenters from the Roman Catholic Church). There is a theory that it is derived from the personal name of Besançon Hugues, the leader of the "Confederate Party" in Geneva, in combination with a Frankish corruption of the German word for conspirator or confederate: eidgenosse. Thus, Hugues plus eidgenot becomes Huguenot, with the intention of associating the Protestant cause with some very unpopular politics. O.I.A. Roche, in his book The Days of the Upright, a History of the Huguenots, writes 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 Huisgenooten, or "house fellows," while on the Swiss and German borders they were termed Eidgenossen, 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." As nickname and even abusive name it's use was banned in the regulations of the Edict of Nantes which Henry IV (Henry of Navarre, who himself earlier was a Huguenot) issued in 1598. The French Protestants themselves preferred to refer to themselves as "réformees" (reformers) rather than "Huguenots". It was much later that the name "Huguenot" became an honorary one of which their descendants are proud
A general edict which encouraged the extermination of the Huguenots was issued on January 29th, 1536 in France. On March 1st, 1562 some 1200 Huguenots were slain at Vassy, France. This ignited the the Wars of Religion which would rip apart, devastate, and bankrupt France for the next three decades.
St. Batholomew massacre, 1572 Click on image above for an enlarged view
During the infamous St Bartholomew Massacre of the night of 23/24 August, 1572 more than 8 000 Huguenots, including Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, Governor of Picardy and leader and spokesman of the Huguenots, were murdered in Paris. It happened during the wedding of Henry of Navarre, a Huguenot, to Marguerite de Valois (daughter of Catherine de Medici), when thousands of Huguenots converged on Paris for the wedding celebrations. Catherine de Medici It was Catherine de Medici who persuaded her weakling son Charles IX to order the mass murder, which lasted three days and spread to the countryside. On Sunday morning August 24th, 1572 she personally walked through the streets of Paris to inspect the carnage. Henry of Navarre's life was spared when he pretended to support the Roman Catholic faith. In 1593 he made his "perilous leap"and abjured his faith in July 1593, and 5 years later he was the undisputed monarch as King Henry IV (le bon Henri, the good Henry) of France. When the first rumours of the massacre reached the Vatican in Rome on 2 September 1572, pope Gregory XIII was jubilant and wanted bonfires to be lit in Rome. He was persuaded to wait for the official communication. The very morning of the day that he received the confirmed news, the pope held a consistory and announced that "God had been pleased to be merciful". Then with all the cardinals he repaired to the Church of St. Mark for the Te Deum, and prayed and ordered prayers that the Most Christian King might rid and purge his entire kingdom (of France) of the Huguenot plague. Pope Gregory XIII
On 8 September 1572 a procession of thanksgiving took place in Rome, and the pope, in a prayer after mass, thanked God for having "granted the Catholic people a glorious triumph over a perfidious race" (gloriosam de perfidis gentibus populo catholico loetitiam tribuisti).
Gregory XIII engaged Vasari to paint scenes in one of the Vatican apartments of the triumph of the Most Christian King over the Huguenots. He had a medal struck representing an exterminating angel smiting the Huguenots with his sword, the inscription reading: Hugonottorium strages (Huguenot conspirators). In France itself, the French magistracy ordered the admiral to be burned in effigy and prayers and processions of thanksgiving on each recurring 24th August, out of gratitude to God for the victory over the Huguenots.
Henry IV, himself a former Huguenot (as Henry of Navarre) The Edict of Nantes was signed by Henry IV on April 13th, 1598, which brought an end to the Wars of Religion. The Huguenots were allowed to practice their faith in 20 specified French "free" cities. France became united and a decade of peace followed. After Henry IV was murdered in 1610, however, the persecution of the "dissenters" resumed in all earnestness under the guidance of Cardinal Richelieu, whose favourite project was the extermination of the Huguenots.
Richelieu, who relentlessly persecuted the Huguenots. Henry IV's weakling sun, Louis the Thirteenth, refused them the privileges which had been granted to them by the Edict of Nantes; and, when reminded of the claims they had, if the promises of Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth were to be regarded, he answered that "the first-named monarch feared them, and the latter loved them; but I neither fear nor love them." The Huguenot free cities were lost one after the other after they were conquered by the forces of Cardinal Richelieu, and the last and most important stronghold, La Rochelle, fell in 1629 after a siege lasting a month.
Louis XIV Louis XIV (the Sun King, 1643-1715) began to apply his motto l'état c'est moi ("I am the state") and introduced the infamous Dragonnades - the billeting of dragoons in Huguenot households. He began with a policy of une foi, un loi, un roi (one faith, one law, one king) and revoked the Edict of Nantes on 22 October 1685. The large scale persecution of the Huguenots resumed. Protestant churches and the houses of "obstinates" were burned and destroyed, and their bibles and hymn books burned. Emigration was declared illegal. Many Huguenots were burned at the stake. Many Huguenots who did not find their death in local prisons or execution on the wheel of torture, were shipped to sea to serve their sentences as galley slaves, either on French galley ships, or sold to Turkey as galley slaves. A vivid account of the life of galley-slaves in France is given in Jean Marteilhes's Memoirs of a Protestant, translated by Oliver Goldsmith, which describes the experiences of one of the Huguenots who suffered after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Every Huguenot place of worship was to be destroyed; every minister who refused to conform was to be sent to the Hôpitaux de Forçats at Marseilles and at Valance. If he had been noted for his zeal he was to be considered "obstinate," and sent to slavery for life in such of the West-Indian islands as belonged to the French. The children of Huguenot parents were to be taken from them by force, and educated by the Roman Catholic monks or nuns.
Scenes like these were common during the persecution of the Huguenots in France during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Click on picture above for enlargement. At least 250 000 French Huguenots fled to countries such as Switzerland, Germany, England, America, the Netherlands, Poland and South Africa, where they could enjoy religious freedom. As many were killed in France itself. Between 1618 and 1725 between 5 000 and 7 000 Huguenots reached the shores of America. Those who came from the French speaking south of Belgium, an area known as Wallonia, are generally known as Walloons (as opposed to Huguenots) in the United States.
The organised large scale emigration of Hugenots to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa occurred during 1688 - 1689. However, even before this large sscale emigration individual Huguenots such as François Villion (1671) and the brothers François and Guillaume du Toit (1686) fled to the Cape of Good Hope. In 1692 a total of 201 French Huguenots had settled at the Cape of Good Hope. Most of them settled in an area now known as Franschhoek ("French Corner"), some 70 km outside Cape Town, where many farms still bear their original French names.
A century later the promulgation of the Edict of Toleration on 28 November 1787 partially restored the civil and religious rights of the Huguenots in France.
The situation was very different in predominantly Protestant England, where a series of lesser revolutions and civil wars produced an evolution toward parliamentary representative government.
Apparently you unintentionally post fiction, however.
Talk about some reparations, I could use some!
Hugh and Series?
or
Huguenots?
Stormhands doesn’t sound French....:>)
Good point. It was the usurpation of culture, even going so far as to institute a 10-day week. (Resulting in one of my favorite sayings of all time... The beasts of the field taught the revolutionaries a lesson in practical theology). The Bolshies really admired this aspect of the FRev.
The French Revolution was bad because so many of the people who could have produced peaceful evolution and increased prosperity were already gone! You ought to ask yourself why Catholic countries (and Orthodox ones like Russia) were so backward, then exploded into violence and chaos. It just might have something to do with the fact that their large monopolistic, corrupt, and flagrantly anti-Biblical church establishments were repulsive to many. If a wealthy established institution wallows in corruption, allies itself with abusive political elites, and massacres all dissidents, explosion (or massive cynicism like that seen in many Catholic cultures) is inevitable.
You are really a piece of work. So the church made them pay what they can afford. And that makes it better.
You wrote:
“Regarding “empty suit” he was selected for his first position solely because HIS FAMILY simply needed someone in a position to control the flow of money from the bishopric into their pockets, and his older brother had turned down the job to join a religious order.”
Great, you can read Wikipedia. And what you just wrote is irrelevant. He is not known for his first position. He is known for his diplomatic mastery over much of European affairs.
“That’s a job an “empty suit” could handle. His promotion to bishop was of the same order.”
Again, irrelevant.
“His brilliance became known LATER ON.”
I never said otherwise. You, however, did. If he possessed brilliance in his position, then he was not an empty suit.
“Now, regarding missionaries, irrespective of where the Jesuits were headquartered, their access to French lands and concessions required approval by the French government - and if I recall correctly that came about at the conclusion of the Thirty Years War ~ which took papal powers in such matters and assigned them to the secular states.”
Again, irrelevant. Your claims were the following:
1) “...Richelieu was promoted most often because so many powerful figures around him thought of him as a useful idiot, an empty suit...”
2) “One article says he granted the Jesuits a monopoly on the fur trade ~ which suggests he either hated the Recollects, but hated the Jesuits more (getting them cooked on tribal campfires throughout the Ohio Country)...”
3) “...or he wanted to get them out of the country.”
4) “After Richilieu it was amazing that the Jesuits still existed.”
And apparently those claims are false.
“Richilieu appears to be the guy to credit with all the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Westphalia although he died right before the Congress.”
Wow, what an empty suit, huh? That was only one of the most important treaties in history. Gee, he was clearly a moron.
“Prior to that Treaty some of the more powerful nation states (e.g. France and Spain) regularly told Popes to take a hike and dictated from their own capitals where missionaries of which orders were allowed. England, of course, took an even more devious course, and the Swedes didn’t care.”
All irrelevant to what we’re discussing.
“BTW, all the top commanders and principals in the Thirty Years War were fairly close relatives ~ like a small town full of feuding clans.”
No. Von Tilly and Wallenstein were not close relatives, for instance. Were they related at all? I doubt it.
Everybody has to have a first job you know.
I must say, I find the inside of the cathedral at Geneva quite depressing.
I believe he was made a saint some time back.
Graf von Tilly and Reichsgrafen von Waldstein, Herren von Wartenberg ~ it’s inescapable that they were relatives ~ need to check what the Mormons have on them. I’m betting they had at least one Great Grandmother in common.
Do you see any similarities?
First is the Huguenot Cross also called the La Rochelle Cross
Second is the Scottish Knights Templar Cross
Both Huguenots and Knights Templar had a presence in La Rochelle and were persecuted by the French King
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Rochelle#Huguenot_rebellions
The Knights Templar had a strong presence in La Rochelle since before the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who exempted them from duties and gave them mills in her 1139 Charter.[2] La Rochelle was for the Templars their largest base on the Atlantic Ocean,[3], and where they stationned their main fleet.[4] From La Rochelle, they were able to act as intermediaries in trade between England and the Mediterranean.[5] There is a legend that the Templars used the port of La Rochelle to flee with the fleet of 18 ships which had brought Jacques de Molay from Cyprus to La Rochelle. The fleet would have left ladden with knights and treasures just before the issuance of the arrest warrant against the Order in October 1307
--
Huguenot rebellionsUnder Henry IV the city enjoyed a certain freedom and prosperity until the 1620s, but the city entered in conflict with the central authority of the King Louis XIII with the Huguenot rebellion (1622).[9] A fleet from La Rochelle fought a royal fleet of 35 ships under the Charles de Guise in front of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, but was defeated on 27 October 1622, leading to the signature of the Peace of Montpellier.
Do you think there is a connection?
You wrote:
“The French Revolution was bad because so many of the people who could have produced peaceful evolution and increased prosperity were already gone! You ought to ask yourself why Catholic countries (and Orthodox ones like Russia) were so backward, then exploded into violence and chaos.”
Why would I ask myself a question that makes no sense because the premise is faulty? Catholic countries were the great western powers in the 16th and 17th centuries. Spain? Conquered much of the world. Portugal too. France? The same. The Protestant country England did the same. Holland (with a more mixed population) did too. The fact that some of those countries then declined (and later rose again by the way) has nothing to do with the religion of their people.
“It just might have something to do with the fact that their large monopolistic, corrupt, and flagrantly anti-Biblical church establishments were repulsive to many.”
No. Muslim countries were superior to Christian ones throughout the Middle Ages and Ottoman Turkey easily outmatched all Protestant countries combined until the 18th or 19th century. Were the Muslims, or Turks specifically, Biblical? How about China in the 17th century?
“If a wealthy established institution wallows in corruption, allies itself with abusive political elites, and massacres all dissidents, explosion (or massive cynicism like that seen in many Catholic cultures) is inevitable.”
And yet it never happened. The Church protected the poor - as is seen by the results of the Protestant Revolution in England where the government had to enact laws to help exterminate the poor because they were too Protestant to aid them. Clearly, the fact that non-Catholics existed in Catholic countries means they were not massacred.
You wrote:
“Everybody has to have a first job you know.”
Maybe. But a man is either brilliant or he isn’t. You can say a man is an empty suit and then in a later post say he was later brilliant and be taken seriously.
Consistency.
BTW, by the time of the English invasion of Canada, Jews were allowed to be members of the White Coats and could advance quite high in rank. This was far and away more progressive than England at the time.
You wrote:
“One of the many Jesuits eaten near my old hometown of Indianapolis was Father Brebeuf.”
(sigh) St. Jean de Brébeuf was not eaten. His heart was. The Hurons were apparently hoping to attain his courage by doing so.
“I believe he was made a saint some time back.”
1930 or so.
What I am saying, and it is indisputable, is that free societies, capitalism, and limited government are unique outgrowths of Reformation culture, esp. that of Great Britain and its colonies.
Part, all of him ~ makes little difference. He was eaten (in part), but cooked (as a whole). The Hurons were not completely savage!
You wrote:
“Graf von Tilly and Reichsgrafen von Waldstein, Herren von Wartenberg ~ it’s inescapable that they were relatives ~ need to check what the Mormons have on them. I’m betting they had at least one Great Grandmother in common.”
I wouldn’t bet money on that. I could be wrong, but I doubt they’re related.
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