French huguenots in america Continue A religious group consisting of Calvinists from France for other purposes, see Huguenot (disambiguation). Part of the series atCalvinismJohn Calvin Von Christianation Reformation Protestantism Theology Theology of John Calvin Covenant Theology Epiphany Lord's Dinner Regulatory Principle Predestination Scholastication Documents Institutes of christian religion of the Geneva Bible Confession Three forms of unity Westminster standards Systemic theology metric psalms Theologians Huldrych Charles Hodge Anglican movements Afrikaners Huguenots Pilgrims Puritans of Neo-Calvinism New Calvinism New Calvinism Interfaith Organizations World ˈhjuːɡənɒts Communion of the Reformed Churches of the World Reformed Scholarship International Conference of Reformed Churches of the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council of Calvinism also UK: /-noʊz/ - yɡ French The Huguenots were French Protestants who held on to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. This term dates back to the early 16th century in France. It has often been used against the reformed church of France since the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant population of eastern France, in Alsace, Moselle and Montbellar, by contrast, were mostly German Lutherans. In his encyclopedia of Protestantism, Hans Hillerbrand said that on the eve of the massacre on St. Bartholomew's Day in 1572, the Huguenot community made up 10% of the French population. By 1600 it had fallen to 7-8%, and was reduced even further after the return of brutal persecution in 1685 under the decree of Louis XIV Fontainebleau. The Huguenots are believed to have been concentrated among the population in the southern and western parts of the Kingdom of France. As the Huguenots gained influence and more openly demonstrated their faith, Catholic hostility grew. This was followed by a series of religious conflicts known as the French War of Religion, periodically fought from 1562 to 1598. Huguenot was headed by Jeanne d'Albrat; her son, the future Henry IV (who later converted to Catholicism to become king); and Princes conde. The wars ended with the Nantes Decree, which grants Huguenots substantial religious, political and military autonomy. The Uprisings of the Huguenots in the 1620s led to the abolition of their political and military privileges. They maintained the religious provisions of Nantes until the reign of Louis XIV, which gradually increased the persecution of Protestantism until he issued Fontainebleau (1685). This put an end to the legal recognition of Protestantism in France, and the Huguenots were forced either to convert to Catholicism (perhaps as nicodemites) or to flee as refugees; they were subjected to cruel dragon nods. Louis XIV claimed that the number of French Huguenots had shrunk from about 900,000 or 800,000 adherents to just 1,000 or 1,500. He exaggerated the decline, but the dragon gums were devastating to the French Protestant community. The rest of the Huguenots faced continued persecution under Louis XV. By the time he was killed in 1774, Calvinism was almost eliminated in France. Persecution of Protestants officially ended with the Versailles decree signed by Louis XVI in 1787. Two years later, with the Revolutionary Declaration of Human Rights and Citizen 1789, Protestants were granted equal rights as citizens. The etymology of huguenots crosses the term used initially in ridicule, Huguenot has an unclear origin. Various hypotheses are promoted. The term may have been a combined reference to Swiss politician Bezanson Gug (died 1532) and the religiously controversial nature of Swiss republicanism at the time. It used a pejorative pun on the name Hugues by way of the Dutch word Huisgenoten (literally housemates), referring to the connotations of several related words in the German Eidgenosse (Confederate in the sense of citizen of one of the state of the Swiss Confederation). In St. Petersburg was the reception house of John Calvin and the center of the Calvinist movement. In the Geneva guga, although he was a Catholic, he was the leader of the Confederate Party, the so-called because she advocated independence from the Duke of Savoy. It sought an alliance between the city-state and the Swiss Confederation. Huguenot's label was allegedly first used in France by those conspirators (all of them aristocratic members of the Reformed Church) who were involved in the 1560 Amboise conspiracy: a thwarted attempt to wrest power in France from the influential and zealously Catholic house of Giese. This measure would contribute to the development of relations with the Swiss. O.I.A. Roche promoted this idea among historians. In his book Days of the Vertical World, The History of the Huguenots (1965), he wrote that Huguenot is a combination of Dutch and German. In the Dutch-speaking north of France, Bible students gathered in each other's homes for secret study were called Huis Genoten (housemates), while on the Swiss and German borders they were called Eid Genossen, or sworn comrades, i.e. persons associated with each other by the oath. Galliated in Guguenot, often used deprecatingly, the word became, during two and a half centuries of terror and triumph, an icon of enduring honor and courage. Some do not agree with such a double or triple linguistic origin. Janet Gray argues that for the word has spread to general use in France, France, must have originated there in French. Hugues Hypothesis argues that the name was derived by an association with Hugues Capet, King of France,3 that reigned long before the Reformation. The Gaulians considered him a noble man who respected the dignity and lives of people. Janet Gray and other proponents of the hypothesis suggest that the name huguenote would be roughly equivalent to little Hugo, or those who want Hugo. The flag of the French Huguenots In this last connection, the name may suggest a pejorative conclusion of superstitious worship; Popular fantasies believed that Huguon, the gate of King Hugo, haunted the ghost of le roi Huguet (regarded by Catholics as the infamous scoundrel) and other spirits. Instead of being in Purgatory after death, according to Catholic doctrine, they returned to cause harm to live at night. It is reported that the claims of the forms (these supposedly reformed) were gathered at night in Tours, both for political purposes and for prayer and singing of psalms. Reguier de la Plancha (d. 1560) in his De l'Estat de France offered the following report on the origin of the name, as quoted by The Cape Monthly: Reguier de la Plancha explains it as follows: The name huguenand was given to those of religion during the Amboise case, and they had to keep it until now. I will say a word about it to settle the doubts of those who have lost their way in search of its origin. The superstition of our ancestors, for twenty or thirty years about that, was such that in almost all the cities in the kingdom they had the idea that certain spirits had passed their purgatory in this world after death, and that they went through the city at night, striking and burning up many of the people they found on the streets. But the light of the gospel made them disappear, and teaches us that these spirits were street strollers and bullies. In Paris, the spirit was called le moine bourrh; in Orleans, le Mulet is dressed; in Blois-le-loop garon; at Tours, Le Roy Huguet; and so on in other places. Now, it happens that those they called Lutherans were at that time so narrowly observed during the day that they had to wait until night to gather, in order to pray to God, to preach and receive the Holy Sacrament; so, although they did not frighten anyone or harm anyone, the priests, through ridicule, made them successors to those spirits that roam at night; and thus, this name is quite common in the mouths of the population to designate the evangelical huguenands in the country Tourraine and Amboyse, it became in vogue after this venture . Some have speculated that the name was obtained, with similar intended contempt, from les guenon de Hus (monkey or monkey Of Jan Gus). By 1911, there was still no consensus in the United States on this interpretation. Symbol of the Huguenots Cross the cross is the distinctive emblem of the Huguenots (croix huguenote). It is now an official symbol of the Protestant form (French Protestant church). Descendants of Huguenots sometimes show this symbol as a sign of intelligence (recognition) between them. The demography of 16th-century religious geopolitics on the map of modern France. Under the control of the Huguenot nobility, contested between Huguenots and Catholics, the Catholic nobility of the Lutheran majority of the region, the issue of demographic power and the geographical spread of the reformed tradition in France was covered in various sources. Most of them agree that the Population of the Huguenots reached 10% of the total population, or approximately 2 million people, on the eve of the massacre on St. Bartholomew's Day in 1572. John Calvin's new teachings attracted much of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. After John Calvin introduced the Reformation in France, the number of French Protestants steadily increased to ten percent of the population, or approximately 1.8 million people, during the decade between 1560 and 1570. During the same period, there were about 1,400 Reformed churches in France. Hans J. Hillerbrand, an expert on the subject, in his encyclopedia of Protestantism: a 4-volume set claims that the Huguenot community reached up to 10% of the French population on the eve of the massacre on St. Bartholomew's Day, declining to 7 to 8% by the end of the 16th century, and further after heavy persecution began once again with the repeal of the decree of Nantes Louis XIV of France in 1685.