The Edict of Nantes

In April 1598 Henry IV of France was at Nantes (Edict of Nantes first brevet (3 April 1598)). The edict he issued there looks back over years of civil war: one of its articles cancels every sentence passed against the Reformed on account of their religion since the death of King Henry II (Edict of Nantes art. 58). In the preamble the king says that he has received the complaints of his Catholic subjects and the petitions of those of the “so-called Reformed religion”, as the edict calls the French Protestants. Since God has not yet allowed his subjects to worship in one form of religion, he says, they should at least do so without disorder, and he gives them one general law by a “perpetual and irrevocable” edict (Edict of Nantes preamble).

The first articles order that the memory of what was done on both sides in the troubles be treated as extinguished (Edict of Nantes art. 1–2). Catholic worship is to be restored wherever it had been interrupted, and churches and church property are to be handed back to the clergy (Edict of Nantes art. 3). The Reformed may live anywhere in the kingdom without being questioned, molested or forced to act against their conscience in matters of religion (Edict of Nantes art. 6).

Their public worship is allowed only in listed places: in the houses of nobles who hold high justice, in the towns where it had been held openly in 1596 and in 1597 up to the end of August, in the places granted by the edict of 1577, and in the suburbs of one further town in each bailiwick (Edict of Nantes art. 7–11). Elsewhere it is forbidden, and expressly at court, in Paris and within five leagues of the city (Edict of Nantes art. 13–14). The Reformed must keep the Catholic feast days and pay tithes to the parish clergy (Edict of Nantes art. 20, 25). No distinction of religion is to be made in admitting students to universities and schools or the sick and poor to hospitals, and the Reformed are declared capable of holding every public office (Edict of Nantes art. 22, 27). Their lawsuits go to special chambers of the parlements; in those of Bordeaux and Grenoble half the judges are to be of their own religion (Edict of Nantes art. 30–31).

Two royal warrants issued with the edict went further. One promised 45,000 écus a year for purposes it leaves unnamed (Edict of Nantes first brevet (3 April 1598)). The other left in Reformed hands for eight years the garrisoned towns they had held up to the end of August 1597 (Edict of Nantes second brevet (30 April 1598)). The Parlement of Paris registered the edict on 25 February 1599 (Edict of Nantes registration notes).

The edict thus gave a second confession a place in law inside a Catholic kingdom, on unequal terms (Edict of Nantes art. 3) (Edict of Nantes art. 13–14). In October 1685 Henry’s grandson Louis XIV revoked it, saying in his own edict that most of the Reformed had since become Catholics, so that it no longer served a purpose (Edict of Fontainebleau preamble, art. 1 and dating clause). See Louis XIV Revokes the Edict of Nantes.