Talk:French Wars of Religion

message: There seems to be discrepancy in the information.  In one place it says Catherine de Medici issued the Edict of Toleration in 1562, but that it was revoked after a massacre of Protestants at Vassy.  It later says that she issued the Edict of St. Germain in 1570, but when you follow the link to that article, it says the Edict of St. Germain was in 1562, that it is usually known as the Edict of Toleration, and that it was revoked after the massacre at Vassy.  Which is it?
J
You're right, there is some confusion here...  This article is correct, but "Edict of St. Germain" should actually be called "Peace of St. Germain" (it was a truce in 1570 that allowed the Huguenots control of four cities in France)...  Earlier the article had said "Treaty of St. Germain", but that linked to an article about the 1919 Treaty ending WWI...  I changed it to link to the article "Edict of St Germain" but noted that that article describes the Edict of Toleration (1562) and is misnamed.  The 1562 Edict of Toleration was not, as far as I know, called "Edict of St. Germain", so that article should be renamed "1562 Edict of Toleration", and if an article about the 1570 truce is written, it should have the title "Peace of St. Germain." Codex Sinaiticus 18:49, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  what was the main conflict between the huguenots bisides religion? 

message: This is a very important chapter in our history. It has a special relevance to our situation today. For the sake of young people, doing research papers especially, trying to understand the importance of the Wars of Religion, it should stay as a separate article. Marknw 19:44, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article should not be merged into any other 

message: Seventy-eight years of turbulent history (1520-1598) cannot be crammed into one enormous page. You'll need to employ several long notices on such a page.  Superslum 11:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The typical model would be something like the History of India model, with 40+ sub 'Main articles'. // <B>Fra</B>nkB 02:12, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Too much for one page

message: I think that this article should be divided into eight subsections, one for each war. See the article in Frenchfor a model.  83.176.83.83 08:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Subsections

message: I hope the modifications I've made are satisfactory and will not be immediately removed, I've tried to break the over-whelming topic down into its chronological, and mainly political, actions for simplicity's sake. Any entries on the themes and problems surrounding this study should really be on seperate articles. 
I find large blocks of prose rather intimidating, as might many users, so I've 'bulleted' it under titles to make it easier to skim read, while trying to maintain as much of the original script as possible. I am studying this topic for my degree and seek to source my materials when I have opportunity, as well as continue what I've started for the rest of the page. 
As a student, I also disagree with the over use of the word 'toleration' as the 16th century concept of toleration was not as positive as it is today, therefore their aim was not necessarily one of toleration, even if they used it as means. The article should be careful not to fall into the trap of making this period of history seem radically forward thinking. (I'm not saying it does, as I've not made it the whole way through the article, I'm just noting that this should be looked out for in future.)
- Dragonfang88 (talk) 16:34, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: The Modifications I've made

message: I'm not sure it's stylistically correct to refer to each individual conflict as a properly-named war, using capital letters (i.e., the "First War," the "Third War," etc.).  There is in fact some ambiguity as to the number of wars that were actually fought from 1562-98, because the line between peace and war during this time was so blurry, and because the combattants sometimes changed.  The most common number given (which we have accepted) is eight, but some sources only consider there to have been six wars (see, for instance, ), while others believe there to have been nine, distinguishing the War of the Three Henrys from the conflict against Spain.  So I think it's a bit misleading to our readers to give them proper-sounding names like "Seventh War of Religion" when in fact it's debateable when - or if - that "Seventh War" took place.  I think the collective name for the conflict should be in majuscules ("French Wars of Religion") but not the individual "wars" (first war, second war, etc.). Funnyhat (talk) 19:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Giving proper names to the individual wars 

message: The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and after (1572-3) section refers to the queen mother, even with a wikilink. The wikilink leads, obviously to a disambiguation page. I cannot easily decipher who is meant by "the queen mother", so I cannot fix this myself. Can someone please pipe the link so it points to the correct queen mother's article? Thanks. -Lilac Soul (talk • contribs • &wiki=wikipedia&lang=en  count) 16:38, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Which "queen mother"?

message: Some new pages/lists to consider which we could link to this article, giving greater detail to this immense topic:
* Massacre at Vassy (now Wassy)
* Military Action in the French Wars of Religion: a list or description of military events in the wars/individual battles/seiges - not all are given here, and the ones available seem disasociated from the war-efforts as a whole
* Religious Violence in the French Wars of Religion: could give a more balanced view of the nature of religious conflict, maybe centre it around the different Historical interpretations - I'm thinking off the top of my head but Denis Crouzet's thesis come to mind. Or it could just come down to Civil Disturbances/Iconoclasm/etc.
* Henry IV's Succession: this was a whole series of military-diplomatic events which get tagged onto the end of the French Wars of Religion but encompass much more than religion
* War in Brittany: same again really, a seperate conflict almost
* The Committee of 16 (Catholic League in Paris) needs more information
* The War with Spain under Henry IV (is there already a page?)
* Theories on Monarchy and Resistance during French Wars of Religion: lots and lots of discussion/famous theorists in here which are related: Bodin for instance, Theodore Beze, Montaigne.
* Catholicism during the French Wars of Religion: Confraternities, Catholic leagues (not attatched to Guise - made between local catholic confraternaties), Preachers and religious violence, Millenialism (debated by historians), Jesuits, Moderates and Ultra-Catholics, Gallicanism, Ultra-Montaine Catholics, reassertion of the true presence of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist...
Just some suggestions, I don't know how much of this is viable.
Also, this article may imply the Guise had strict control over the League which they did not (but as I've only just started reading about it I really can't comment any further...) Dragonfang88 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 20:57, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: New Pages/Clean-up

message: "...and that any private citizen was morally free to commit regicide, a declaration reminiscent of the Papal bull Regnans in Excelsis against Elizabeth I."
I removed part of this sentence refering to regicide. I read the bull and found no mention of regicide, not even conclusional. Therefore I find the above sentence ujust because it may mislead readers to regard this bull as if containing reference to regicide.
Isidoros47 (talk) 01:50, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regnans in Excelsis 

message: Please, have a look here : Talk:La Chapelle-Faucher. Thanks in advance. Alvar☮ ☎ 13:40, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Massacre at La Chapelle-Faucher

message: ...the Spanish launched a concerted offensive in the spring of 1596 capturing Calais and Ardes by April
The linked "Ardes" is a very small town in France (population about 600). I'm not sure it existed in 1596. Moreover, it is located deep within the borders of France, and the Spanish would have a hard time reaching it either from Spain itself or from the Burgundian circle. Maybe it's a completely different "Ardes"? Or something else altogether?
Top.Squark (talk) 20:12, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Spanish took Ardes? 

message: This article has way too many images in it. It took my computer a few minutes just to load the article. Can the number of images be reduced?--R-41 (talk) 19:23, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too many images in the article, takes significant time for page to load 

message: Subchapter "The 'third' war (1568–70)":
"nominally on behalf of Condé's 15 year old son, Henry, and the sixteen-year old Henry of Navarre"
According to this line Henry of Conde is younger than Henry of Navarre, according to the birthdates given in the respective biographies, the opposite is true. Maybe someone can change, who is more familiar with the subject.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.15.4.43 (talk) 19:30, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Henry of Conde older or younger than Henry of Navarre? 

message: The Lede is supposed to summarize content from the article.  If such content is cited in the body of the article, the Lede does not need cites, and WIKI MOS generally suggests that cites be excluded from the Lede.Parkwells (talk) 15:17, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The  tags were added by an anonymous user (12.54.20.60) without edit summary or reason on 21 April 2010.  That same anon editor has a number of warnings about edits without summaries and adding poorly sourced material. The fact tags are disruptive to the reading of the lead paragraph (and are actually the reason I came to the talk page - to find out why they'd been put there in the first place). The statements seem well-ref'ed in the body which is where citations belong. I am removing the tags per WP:CITE. If you want them back, please discuss it here on the talk page and reach consensus. Personally, I think the lead should be a generalize summary, that only direct quotes or contentious material really need citations, and that the  should rarely if ever appear in the lead. Kevin/Last1in (talk) 17:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Lede does not need cites

message: Section:  The 'seventh' war (1579–80) and the Death of Anjou (1584)
"Despite according his brother the title of Duke of Anjou, the prince and his followers continued to create disorder at court through their involvement in the Dutch Revolt."
This sentence is difficult.  Which prince accorded his brother the title of Duke of Anjou? And who was the brother?  There is no mention of a prince in the previous para.
"disorder at court" I make a wild guess this means the French court, but the previous para only mentions Spanish, England and German states.  Apuldram (talk) 10:32, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Changed to : "Despite Henri according his youngest brother Francis the title of Duke of Anjou, the prince and his followers continued to create disorder at court..." Johnbod (talk) 14:19, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Which prince? 

message: Don't know if this affects anyone else, but both this article and the talk page don't display properly on my browser/PC. The standard wikipedia left hand pane (i.e. the one with the wiki globe and main page and other languages links) is missing, the font becomes times new roman, infoboxes have no borders and other standard wiki features are missing. Never seen this odd formatting happen on other articles. Anyone any ideas?1812ahill (talk) 13:41, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Both article aand talk display normally on my computers (Windows XP and Windows 7). You need to provide more information.  Is this a new development? Does it happen on websites that are not Wikipedia?  Apuldram (talk) 14:05, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Must have been a ghost in my machine, it looks normal now. Silly me.:)1812ahill (talk) 05:52, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article doesn't display properly. 

message: I've noticed that the date formatting in this article isn't consistent - for example, in the "The third war" section, we have "16 March 1569", "October 30, 1569", and "8 August 1570".  Does anyone have strong views about which format to use?  If not, the "MMMM DD, YYYY" format will require fewer changes. Tevildo (talk) 22:19, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date formatting 

message: The passage in Knecht, p. 17, about Marguerite of Angoulême is here: "though her major writings ... did share certain heterodox ideas with the works of her mentors, like them she never abandoned the Gallican Church for Protestantism". Yngvadottir (talk) 19:17, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed sentence on Francis' sister being a Calvinist 

message: One of the maps illustrating the locations where the wars were fought shows four colors, two of which are described in the text as 
         –Areas controlled and contested by Huguenots are marked purple and livid on this map of modern France.
There are more than two colors on the map  (two purples, one grey, and one blue).  Since grey is the base map color, it need not be described but the meaning of the other colors are not clear.  
Most English users would not recognize that "livid" meant something like "blueish grey".  Perhaps this choice of name label is based on a hex color designation, but the article would be better served by describing the color as "blueish grey".
Presumably the "livid" color is meant to show Alsace Lorraine area, but a better color name should be applied to the text.  There are two shades of purple in the map, one a lavender, and the other more of a reddish purple. Probably the later is being applied to areas where the conflict was the most intense, but its not obviously so..  Or is it that the two purple areas were "controlled" by French Huguenots, and the "livid area" was contested by them"?  The caption text is ambiguous.
A simple fix to the caption would be all that might be needed, but the labeling is not very well thought out, and a revision to the graphic might also be needed. TwelveGreat (talk) 12:11, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not good with colors like much of male humans. Replace it with the new caption as you wish. The source for that map is: http://pages.uoregon.edu/mapplace/EU/EU20_France/Maps/EU20_02ReligiousWars.jpg and most other historical maps are pretty much the same. It misses two tiny regions northeast of Poitou (almost Normandy) that were controlled by Huguenots.Ernio48 (talk) 12:57, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

text: Livid is not a colour, but in French can mean dark or intense, of any colour. I have redone the caption based on the file info (you know where that lives, right?). Whether the map is accurate I have no idea. Johnbod (talk) 00:34, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The current fixes seem reasonable.  However, as to whether "livid" is a color or not, see Wikipedia:Blue-grayTwelveGreat (talk) 15:03, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: The color "livid"

message: I'm not sure we should have that pie chart with religious percentages for France in 1560. While it's generally believed that Protestants made up about 10% of the population in the 1560s, we do not have actual hard data on that. There was no religious census. 2602:306:CFEA:170:2818:2C24:5C6B:DC4 (talk) 02:27, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pie chart 

message: "Unlike all other religious wars at the time, the French wars retained their religious character without being confounded by dynastic considerations."
I think, respectfully, this line in the intro should be taken out.  Henry of Navarre's action (abjuring Catholicism, then rejoining after victory) suggest his involvement was more about dynastic consideration than anything else.
The very next paragraph seems to suggest 'dynastic considerations as well: "The conflict involved disputes between the aristocratic houses of France, mainly the Reformed House of Condé (a branch of the House of Bourbon) and the Roman Catholic House of Guise (a branch of the House of Lorraine), and both sides received assistance from foreign sources."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Keefete (talk • contribs) 15:27, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Without being confounded by dynastic considerations? 

message: While I acknowledge the work involved in making the map showing which areas of France were predominantly each of the three religions, it is not a map of France as it stood in 1560. It appears to be modern France. Take a look at this map http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/ward_1912/france_religious_wars_1562.jpg. CsikosLo (talk) 11:59, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

message: Opening paragraph mentions countries on the periphery of "today's France": The conflict involved several pre-modern day principalities around the borders of today's France, like the Kingdom of Navarre and parts of Burgundy. But surely, the Dukedom of Lorraine, which was not incorporated into France until the 1600s, which is after our period, should also be included as "not a part of today's France." According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "French domination of the area [Lorraine] dates from the 17th century". The fact is that the aristocratic families of these peripheral regions had designs on the French throne, either through entitlement by heredity (Antoine of Navarre), or marriage. Mary Queen of Scots (daughter of Marie of Guise) had been carried off from Scotland by her wealthy uncles the Duke Guise and his brother the Cardinal and married to the Dauphin (and briefly king) of France, the child, Francis. According to Knecht, after the death of Henry II the enormously wealthy and powerful Guises pushed aside the Bourbons who as Princes of the Blood ought to have been entitled to rule France during the minority of Francis II. (Knecht, The French Wars of Religion 1559–1598, pp 20–21) and ruled it themselves. I don't think this is mentioned in the article. In any case I don't know how pertinent it is to mention that these regions were not at the time part of "France" at all, because it is confusing. The Guises owned/ or at least controlled (in the case of Cardinal Charles of Guise) enormous properties and estates within France proper. Mballen (talk) 05:32, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Geography of the war - in opening paragraph

message: In the opening summary the internal reference for "civil infighting" takes you to "civil war", if civil war is meant why not use that term, especially since, according to the dictionary, "infighting" refers primarily to hidden conflict within an organization or group, whereas the conflicts in the wars of religion were open conflicts between groups. Therefore I am removing it to make the sentence less redundant and more accurate. The war or wars involved dynastic power struggles as well as religious ones but were primarily set off and motivated by religion, according to Knecht -- hence the name they are known by, "Wars of Religion". As far as geography, the nation state as we now know it did not exist in the feudal system then in place. Instead, there was a system of rule by families and of acquisition of territories within and without "nations" by marriage, conquest, and hereditary right. It just confuses things to talk about borders and periphery especially in terms of modern borders. Mballen (talk) 06:06, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Civil Infighting

message: The section about Henry IV appears quite partisan "wise governance" and "reputation as France's best and most beloved monarch" . There is further no supporting citations for this view in the article body, could something more neutral be devised 
Sovietblobfish (talk) 15:08, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Or a reference for these very conventional views. Johnbod (talk) 15:17, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

text: Went to check the Henri IV page to see if its legacy section could provide anything, while similarly glowing it is also entirely reference free, unfortunate Sovietblobfish (talk) 16:10, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV in the Lede 

message: I have renamed the section "Name and duration" to "Name and periodisation". Periodisation describes choices historians make in marking and subdividing a phenomenon in time, while duration implies a known quantity of time. As the section itself already said (albeit without sources), the periodisation of the French Wars of Religion, and how to number or call its periods, is contested, and so it would be best to leave this open. I added a list of 9 wars (plus the two major massacres) that seems to have a certain degree of consensus in English-language sources, although 'Ninth War of Religion' doesn't seem to be as widely attested in French-language (neuvième guerre de religion) or German-language sources (Neunte(r) Hugenottenkrieg). French-language sources that use the term neuvième guerre de religion are generally old and inconsistent with each other (e.g. one says "De 1620 à 1622, c'est une neuvieme guerre de religion. De 1625 à 1629, c'en est une dixième, la dernière", another says "La neuvième guerre de religion (1585–1589) bat son plein..."). German-language sources tend to lump all events from 1585 to 1598 together as 'Achter Hugenottenkrieg', some but not all French-language sources and an apparent minority of English-language sources do this as well. Meanwhile, there is a lot of confusion about whether one should consider 'Eight War of Religion / Eight Huguenot War' as a synonym of 'War of the Three Henrys' or not (German Wikipedia does, English and French Wikipedia do not, they end it in 1589, even though the latter two sometimes claim it was 'the last War of Religion', while claiming elsewhere that the Wars of Religion only ended in 1598). 
It is clear from the above that the debate about how to periodise the French Wars of Religion is far from settled, between and even within language communities. Therefore, I don't think it's a good idea to so confidently assert periods in the "Chronology" section, where the existence of an Eighth War is assumed, and dated to 1585–1598 (which is problematic and contested for the reasons I've given above). However, a list of events including battles, massacres, treaties, assassinations/prominent deaths etc. surely has added value, because these are the relevant events that scholars are trying to frame with periods and names. To emphasise it is a set of events rather than periods, I'll rename it "List of events". I'll keep the periods for now, but will handle them more loosely than before to emphasise the contestation of the names and periodisation. Although this section could be moved to right below the "Name and periodisation" section because they are closely related, this normally isn't done, so instead I'll put a link to the "List of events" section in the "Name and periodisation" section. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:04, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Separating name/periodisation and list of events