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.

Origin of the name

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

Related Topics:
Besançon Hugues - Eidgenosse - John Calvin - Geneva - Alliance - Swiss Confederation - Amboise plot - Power - House of Guise - Protestant

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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

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:"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."

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