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.

Religious beliefs

Huguenot predecessors included the pro-reform and Gallican 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, sacraments and doctrines of the 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, textiles and other merchandise.

Related Topics:
Gallican - Jacques Lefevre - Calvinism - John Calvin - Reformation - Priesthood - Sacraments - Catholic Church - Predestined

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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.

Related Topics:
Ritual - Saint - Pilgrimage - Prayer - Hierarchy - Redemption - Pope

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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 them: he stepped away from restraining persecution of the movement. Still, 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 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.

Related Topics:
Francis I - Parlement - Affair of the Placards - 1555 - 1562

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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.

Related Topics:
Monasticism - Iconoclast - Bourges - Montauban - Orleans

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