The Huguenots in France had their rights taken away by the revocation of what document?

The Huguenots in France lost their legally protected religious rights when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes. Issued in 1598 by Henry IV, the edict had ended decades of religious civil war by granting French Protestants limited freedom of worship and civil protections.

The Huguenots were French Calvinist Protestants. The Edict of Nantes did not create complete religious equality: Catholicism remained the kingdom’s official religion, and Protestant worship was restricted in certain places. Even so, the edict gave Huguenots important guarantees, including permission to worship in specified areas, access to civil rights, and security in designated strongholds.

Louis XIV formally revoked it in 1685 through the Edict of Fontainebleau, also called the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The revocation banned Protestant worship, closed Protestant churches and schools, and pressured Huguenots to convert to Catholicism or leave France. Hundreds of thousands fled to countries including England, the Dutch Republic, Prussia, Switzerland, and the American colonies.

A frequent confusion is naming the Edict of Fontainebleau as the document whose rights were taken away. Fontainebleau was the revoking measure; the revoked document was the Edict of Nantes.