Edict of Nantes
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Nantes, Edict of
Bibliography
See W. J. Stankiewicz, Politics and Religion in Seventeenth Century France (1960).
Nantes, Edict of
an edict signed by the French king Henry IV in Nantes in April 1598; it put an end to the religious wars in France.
By the terms of the Edict of Nantes, Catholicism remained the ruling religion, but the Huguenots gained the freedom to profess their faith and to conduct religious services in the cities (except Paris and several others), in their castles, and in a number of rural communities. The Huguenots were given the right to hold judicial, administrative, and military office. Special courts, half of which were staffed with Huguenots, were created in the parliaments of Paris, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Grenoble to hear cases involving Huguenots. Huguenots were allowed to convoke political conferences and synods. According to secret supplemental articles of the Edict of Nantes, the Huguenots received 100 fortresses with garrisons; the chief fortresses were Montpellier, Montauban, and La Rochelle. They also gained the right to have an army and other privileges.
The Edict of Nantes encountered harsh opposition from the pope, the Catholic clergy, and the parliaments. The last were slow to register it; for example, the Rouen Parliament did so only in 1610. After the war with the Huguenots of 1621–29, the secret articles of the Edict of Nantes were voided by the Peace of Alais (1629). In 1685, Louis XIV finally revoked the Edict of Nantes.