Next week marks a particularly grotesque anniversary. On August 24th, 1572, Huguenots in France were massacred in an orchestrated reign of terror, kicking off a process that would lead to the mass migration of French Calvinists to Ireland.
The other day, tucked away up a side street in Aix-en-Provence, I spotted a tiny Huguenot temple. Beside the enormous theatrical cathedrals, abbeys and monasteries that adorn this beautiful part of France, the easy-to-miss temple is an example of pared-back public humility.
Discretion was essential for the Huguenots, as these French Calvinists were regarded by the monarchy as the enemy within: a Protestant fifth column ready to stage a coup on behalf of France’s fundamentalist Protestant foes – England, the Netherlands and Prussia. Although initially tolerated by the king, the Huguenots were harassed, murdered and expelled from France in various stages throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. They sought refuge across the world, wherever Protestants held power. Today’s English word “refugee” originates from the French word used to describe the exiled Huguenots.
The sectarian conflict that engulfed France in those centuries became one of Europe’s most consequential struggles, playing out first in markets and universities and then on battlefields all over the Continent.. Wherever there was a religious showdown, the Huguenots were prominent on the Protestant side. In the 1690 Battle of the Boyne, mercenary Huguenot forces, loyal to and paid for by William of Orange, were rewarded by being given large tracts of Catholic land around Portarlington, Co Laois, where French continued to be spoken in churches until the 19th century.
In Waterford, the famous “blaa” was brought to the city by Huguenot refugees. It was originally called “le blanc”, or the white bun. A few hundred Huguenot families settled in Waterford after they were kicked out of France, choosing Waterford for its maritime proximity to the homeland, just in case they were ever allowed return. D’Olier Street in Dublin is named after Huguenots; so too is La Touche Bridge in Portobello (William Digges La Touche was director of the Grand Canal Company) and, the hipster’s favourite hangout, Fumbally Lane. Even in modern times, Hugo’s restaurant on Merrion Row takes its name from the adjacent Huguenot cemetery. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 Huguenots emigrated to Ireland.
One of the fascinating aspects of the Huguenot story was the implicit role of money, commerce and economics. While many historians view the story through the lens of religion, an economic historian might frame the Huguenot odyssey through the lens of money. Throughout economic history, politics can be seen as a conflict between three power bases: the priests, the warriors/kings and the merchants. The priests used superstition to keep the masses on side; the warriors/kings used force and the merchants used money. Every time the merchants got too big for their boots the kings, usually allied with the priests, would stamp them down.
In the Reformation, for the first time, rebel priests switched sides and backed the merchants, the money men. This is why Protestantism so unsettled the existing order, leading to a violent backlash in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The French Calvinists were followers of John Calvin, the Lutheran, who set up shop in Geneva, using his Swiss base to convert thousands to the rebel cause. Mimicking Luther, Calvin’s anti-Roman ideas spread, and his rebel pastors began gaining positions in urban parishes and larger free mercantile cities, consolidating the network. Luther, the originator, was at the centre, churning out ideas, and the network of pastors were communicating these thoughts to their congregations, who in turn spread the word. Each discussion, whether in the back of an inn, at a toll turnpike, in the market square or among the artisans’ guilds, mandated people who had never previously been asked their opinion of anything but the weather.
Huguenot Cemetery on Merrion Row in Dublin. Photograph: Bryan O Brien / The Irish Times
Being mandated would have given the feeling of group participation. Wives talked to husbands, bakers argued with butchers, goldsmiths with moneylenders. The topics centred on the eternal questions of life, morality, the afterlife and, of course, salvation.
It wasn’t all about morality; money also drove Protestantism. A major attraction of this new religion was that a converting monarch or prince could steal the assets of the old religion. England’s Henry VIII, known also as the Great Debaser, was a very poor money manager and he found the idea of confiscating church lands extremely tempting. Kings and princelings all over Germany followed Henry’s example, expropriating church property. From the perspective of a bankrupt nobleman, Protestantism was like winning the lottery. And for the local prince, confiscating church land was a sure-fire get-rich-quick scheme. Who wouldn’t go for such an option?
Money also played a part lower down the hierarchy. Calvin had stumbled on a cheaper way to salvation than the traditional route requiring the purchase of indulgences to save a soul. By living a good life, the saved could avoid the tax that was paying for an indulgence, yet guarantee the same outcome. You could almost say early Protestantism was a tax avoidance strategy.
Calvinism constituted a break from older forms of Christianity in another fundamental way: Protestantism celebrated acquiring money through hard work and good deeds, and involving oneself in enterprise. For Calvinists, with their radical brand of Protestantism, being rich and saving wealth were earthly signs of your predestined place in heaven. This interpretation flipped traditional Christian thinking about money, wealth and poverty on its head. It was no longer the meek will inherit the earth.
It could be said that from now on money had a religion. With Calvinism, the sacred and the profane joined forces.
Calvinism also required its members to read the bible, thereby promoting literacy. Huguenots invested heavily in schools and reading, producing populations with measurably higher human capital than their Catholic neighbours. High literacy, technical skill, deferred gratification, reinvestment over consumption, and strong inter-Calvinist networks across borders became a staple of Huguenot culture. This led directly to the relative wealth of Calvinists and Huguenots. In fact, Protestant regions prospered because Bible-reading related improvements in literacy generated human capital, not because of any distinct work ethic.
Huguenots dominated silk, textiles and maritime trade during the first half of the 17th century, establishing them as the wealthiest class in France outside the aristocracy. In many French cities and ports, Protestant merchants carried out a large portion of the foreign trade and dominated the textile industry during the 17th century.
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By 1643 this became all too much for Louis XIV, the Sun King, who issued more than 300 restrictive royal decrees between 1661 and 1685 targeting Protestants’ civil and economic rights, excluding them from key professions, civic offices, and trade guilds. The big moment came in 1685 when an earlier truce, the Edict of Nantes – which allowed Huguenots to live among the Catholic French – was revoked, banning Protestant worship and leading to their temples being destroyed and a state policy of forced conversion.
Huguenots began to leave the country and the French crown responded by criminalising emigration so assets could be confiscated. Of the 800,000 Huguenots in France in 1685, about 550,000 converted back to Catholicism, while some 200,000 emigrated to Switzerland, Germany, the Low Countries, Britain, Ireland, the American colonies, South Africa and South America in a period called “Le Réfuge”, hence the word refugee.
The next time you are down in Waterford or south Kilkenny neck of the woods horsing into your breakfast blaa, remember where it came from: the legacy of these French refugees is written across the fabric of the country.