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.

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Used originally as a term of derision, the derivation of the name Huguenot remains uncertain. It may have been based on the name of Besan?on 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.

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Huguenot related Images and Photos (experimental)

Missions of the 17th Century: the Missionary Dragoon Forcing a Huguenot to Sign His Conversion