The Edict of Nantes Grants French Protestants Toleration

In April 1598, King Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes, seeking to bring an end to the French Wars of Religion that had torn the kingdom apart for decades. Earlier efforts to accommodate the Protestant minority, notably the Edict of Saint-Germain in 1562, had collapsed into widespread civil violence following events such as the Massacre of Vassy. Henry IV, who had embraced Protestantism before ascending the throne in 1589, converted to Catholicism in 1593, a step that helped secure his crown. To restore civil peace and royal control, he negotiated a settlement granting Calvinist Protestants, known as Huguenots, a recognized place within an overwhelmingly Catholic kingdom.

The settlement was constructed across four distinct texts. Alongside a primary document containing 92 articles, which drew heavily on terms from previous failed peace treaties, Henry signed 56 secret articles defining specific rights and duties. These clauses addressed matters such as shielding French Protestants abroad from the Inquisition. The agreement was supplemented by two brevets, or letters patent, which handled military and pastoral affairs. These letters assigned the Huguenots fortified strongholds, known as places de surete, with the crown committing an annual subsidy of 180,000 ecus to support garrisons in sites like La Rochelle for an initial period of eight years.