A Brill Calendar: October 18

The Unwise Revocation of The "Édit de Nantes"

Few decisions made by absolute monarchs unleashed so many momentous changes in Western culture than the one made by the King of France, Louis XIV, October 18, 1685.

‘Sa Majesté’ revoked a law promulgated 87 years earlier by an illustrious predecessor, Henri IV. The ‘Édit de Nantes’ allowed French Protestants a modicum of religious liberty in a national state that considered itself to be the eldest daughter of the Roman Catholic Church. The Edict had endowed a small, but economically and culturally important minority with the wherewithal to live, worship and prosper in an environment dominated by a different concept of Christianity.

Louis’ ill-advised revocation of a sensible social and legal arrangement, a revocation which now denied the ‘Huguenots’ all religious and civil rights, caused an almost instant exodus out of the country. Roughly half a million French citizens of all ages left their homeland and emigrated to Holland, Prussia and England – its Crown Colonies included – where tolerance and forbearance in religious matter stood in decidedly higher esteem.

It is seldom in the history of 'brain-drains' to different parts of the world that attainments innate in a sophisticated nation like late 17th century France – such as knowledge, literacy, craftsmanship, industriousness – continued to contribute to the growth of enterprise and learning in other lands, whilst creating new prospects and innovations in less prohibitive environments.

During the century that followed Louis XIV’s superbly unwise decision, French culture and civilization ruled tastes & practices across Europe, strengthening a wide range of forces and interests opposing an increasingly obsolete ‘Ancien Régime’. With its international orientation from the very start in 1575, Leyden University and its municipal ‘entourage’ of printers, publishers and booksellers prospered then as never before.