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Assuring civil rights for religious minorities in sixteenth-century France
Book chapter

Assuring civil rights for religious minorities in sixteenth-century France

Raymond A Mentzer
A Sourcebook of Early Modern European History, pp.231-233
Routledge, 1
2019
DOI: 10.4324/9781351243292-67

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Abstract

The fierce antagonism between Catholic and Protestant, the horrific collective violence associated with the religious warfare, and individual acts of brutality remain the popular image of the Protestant Reformation and the confessional turbulence that accompanied it. Less well-known are the various efforts to promote reconciliation among opposing religious groups and to safeguard the basic rights of various religious minorities. In France, the Wars of Religion erupted in 1562 and continued, despite repeated yet ineffective attempts at pacification, until the end of the sixteenth century. Over time, all sides came to agree, however reluctantly, on certain measures that ultimately enshrined Catholicism as the official religion of the realm while offering security guarantees to the Protestant minority who, when the fighting finally ended, constituted no more than 6 to 7 percent of the French population, roughly 1.4 million people.

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