Calvinism Dbq

The French civil wars occurred from 1562 to 1598. One of the main reasons for the fighting was the concerning growth of the popularity of Calvinism, a type of Protestantism. These French Calvinists were called Huguenots, who came from all the levels of society. It is estimated that roughly forty to fifty percent of the French nobility were Huguenots, which included the house of Bourbon. The house of Bourbon stood next to the Valois in the royal line of succession and ruled the southern French kingdom of Navarre. Because much of the nobility had converted to Huguenots, they became a dangerous political threat to the power of the monarch. The Calvinists were far outnumbered by the Catholic majority. The ruling Valois monarchy was almost completely Catholic, and it controlled the Catholic Church which did not help them to look favorably on Protestantism. When King Henry II was accidentally killed in 1559, a series of weak sons succeeded him. Catherine de Medici, a moderately Catholic regent for two of the sons, looked to religious compromise as a way to cool down

The towns and provinces of France were against the growing power of monarchical centralization, so the people were very willing to join in the revolt against the monarchy. The nobility agreed with the thinking of the people, and because much of the nobility were Calvinists, they formed an important, strong foundation for the opposition of the monarchy. The wars temporarily halted the development of the French centralized territorial state, and a person’s loyalty to their religion overcame a person’s loyalty to their state’s ruling family. In all this religious conflict emerged a group that placed politics above religion, and this group believed that no religion was worth the side effects of a civil war. The politiques eventually prevailed, but it was too late as both sides had lost a great number of