Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

Louis XIV’s 1685 repeal of the Edict of Nantes ended official toleration of Protestant worship in France and intensified persecution of French Protestants.

Huguenots: French Protestants, especially followers of the Reformed tradition, from the sixteenth century onward. They faced forced conversion, worship restrictions, and flight after the repeal.
Edict of Fontainebleau: The 1685 royal edict that revoked the Edict of Nantes and restricted Protestant life in France. This is the decree that formally enacted the revocation.
Edict of Nantes: A 1598 edict by Henry IV that granted French Protestants limited rights and protections. Its protections were the specific settlement abolished in 1685.
Peace of Westphalia: The 1648 agreements that ended the Thirty Years’ War and established a framework for European religious and political settlements. It contrasted with France’s later retreat from limited religious coexistence.
Camisards: French Protestant insurgents who fought royal forces in the Cévennes during the War of the Camisards. Their revolt grew from repression of Protestants after the revocation.
Dragonnades: Forced billeting of royal troops in Protestant households to pressure residents into converting to Catholicism. Military intimidation helped prepare communities for the 1685 prohibition.
French Wars of Religion: A series of civil wars between Catholics and Protestants in France from 1562 to 1598. The wars shaped the political settlement that the revocation later dismantled.
Treaty of Nantes: The 1598 settlement commonly known as the Edict of Nantes, which granted French Protestants limited protections. It established the protections the 1685 decree explicitly removed.
Huguenot diaspora: The communities formed by Huguenots who left France, especially after the revocation of 1685. Emigration carried French Protestant skills and networks across Europe and beyond.
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in law: The legal dismantling of protections for Protestant worship and institutions in France in 1685. It explains which rights the crown withdrew and which Protestant institutions it suppressed.

Linked from 16 pages