Basics on Huguenots

Who were they?

They were the Protestants of France. The word 'Huguenot' was coined in about 1560 by the French Royal Court then holidaying in Tours. Nightly they would hear the illegal Réformées chanting their prayers at the city gate, the gate of St Hugh. The Réformées, as they called themselves, were Catholics advocating reform in the Church of Rome. This reform did not come so they continued in their own Christian practice. They were regarded as heretics by the Church and the French Government. In the custom of the 16th century heretics were considered politically dangerous and in some instances were sent to the galleys (see below - Quarto Series volumes 40, 43 & 44) or tortured to death and their estates confiscated.

In 1541 a young man, Jean Calvin, born in France of Catholic parents and educated at the University of Bourges, returned to France from Geneva where he had been training to be a leader of Réformées. In some instances his followers were called Calvinists, Huguenots or Réformées.

Three dates stand as episodes of the terrible torture that was inflicted upon them: 1567, 1572 and 1685. The first, 1567, was the torture of the Huguenots by the Duke of Alva of the Spanish Netherlands, to the north of France. These people were Flemish and Walloon and many fled to England where Queen Elizabeth I gave them asylum at Canterbury.

In 1572 the French Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, was fearful of the growing numbers and power of the Huguenots in that they could join up with her foreign enemies and damage France which was then not a very strong state. Catherine de Medici chose the eve of the feast of St Bartholomew's Day to order the mass killing of all Huguenots. Many French Huguenots escaped again to neighbouring countries such as Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Scandinavia and England. In 1550 the King of England had permitted use of the former Austin Friars church to be used by the foreign refugees. It was at this time that the word refugee came into the English language.

The daughter of Catherine de Medici had married the Huguenot King Henry of Navarre on the feast of St Bartholomew and in 1594 Henry was crowned King of France. For political reasons he converted to Catholicism but in 1598 he instituted the treaty known as the Edict of Nantes which gave civic and religious freedom to the Huguenots and remained in force until 1685.

In 1685 King Louis XIV, who despised the Huguenots, revoked the treaty of Henry IV and his act has gone down in history as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. This caused mass dispersal of the Huguenots to all the neighbouring countries as well as to America, the West Indies and Russia.

The Quarto Series of the Huguenot Society of Great Britain & Ireland

These journals record something of the lives of those refugees who made their new lives in England, Ireland, the Channel Islands and America. Numbering 59 in all, they contain Church records, birth, marriages and some deaths, approaching marriages, wills and business records. Naturalisations very often give place of origin of the refugee, names of parents and other family information. Among these we find Jews and Quakers who settled in the American colonies; Huguenots settling in Ireland and personal information of those soldiers (of various nationalities) who fought with William of Orange in Ireland and settled there. These volumes also include the names and records of many nationalities who settled in England before the French, such as the Dutch, Greeks etc.

Researchers of English surnames, whose French ancestors were inmates of the French Hospital, will find references to their ancestors in volumes 52 and 53, many of whom cited detailed family histories. Volume 59 relates to the Italian Protestant Church in London 1570-1591. See also some French & Dutch refugees.

SAG holds the 59 volumes of the Huguenot Society as well as a microfiche copy of volumes 1-39. SAG volunteers have also completed a surname index to all 59 volumes - available from our bookshop.