The Huguenots History And Memory In Transnational Context

This book explores how collective memory of Huguenot history vitally affected political and religious controversies and the formation of identity, both among ethnic Huguenots and in their host communities, in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and North America.

This book explores how collective memory of Huguenot history vitally affected political and religious controversies and the formation of identity, both among ethnic Huguenots and in their host communities, in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and North America.

This book explores how collective memory of Huguenot history vitally affected political and religious controversies and the formation of identity, both among ethnic Huguenots and in their host communities, in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and North America.

"This edited volume contains ... papers that were presented at the 1997 international symposium 'Out of New Babylon: The Huguenots and their Diaspora', held at the College of Charleston, South Carolina"-- Library of Congress.

This book is the first encompassing history of diasporas in Europe between 1500 and 1800. Huguenots, Sephardim, British Catholics, Mennonites, Moriscos, Moravian Brethren, Quakers, Ashkenazim... what do these populations who roamed Europe in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries have in common? Despite an extensive historiography of diasporas, publications have tended to focus on the history of a single diaspora. Each of these groups was part of a community whose connections crossed political and cultural as well as religious borders. Each built dynamic networks through which information, people, and goods circulated. United by a memory of persecution, by an attachment to a homeland—be it real or dreamed—and by economic ties, those groups were nevertheless very diverse. As minorities, they maintained complex relationships with authorities, local inhabitants, and other diasporic populations. This book investigates the tensions they experienced. Between unity and heterogeneity, between mobility and locality, between marginalisation and assimilation, it attempts to reconcile global- and micro-historical approaches. The authors provide a comparative view as well as elaborate case studies for scholars, students, and the public who are interested in learning about how the social sciences and history contribute to our understanding of integration, migrations, and religious coexistence.

These chapters explore how a religious minority not only gained a toehold in countries of exile, but also wove itself into their political, social, and religious fabric. The way for the refugees’ departure from France was prepared through correspondence and the cultivation of commercial, military, scholarly and familial ties. On arrival at their destinations immigrants exploited contacts made by compatriots and co-religionists who had preceded them to find employment. London, a hub for the “Protestant international” from the reign of Elizabeth I, provided openings for tutors and journalists. Huguenot financial skills were at the heart of the early Bank of England; Huguenot reporting disseminated unprecedented information on the workings of the Westminster Parliament; Huguenot networks became entwined with English political factions. Webs of connection were transplanted and reconfigured in Ireland. With their education and international contacts, refugees were indispensable as diplomats to Protestant rulers in northern Europe. They operated monetary transfers across borders and as fund-raisers, helped alleviate the plight of persecuted co-religionists. Meanwhile, French ministers in London attempted to hold together an exceptionally large community of incomers against heresy and the temptations of assimilation. This is a story of refugee networks perpetuated, but also interpenetrated and remade.

Offers a transnational perspective on 17th-century English republicanism, focusing on the lived experiences of English republican exiles.

Author Johannes Müller shows how early modern Netherlandish migrants and their descendants commemorated war and persecution and cultivated new religious and political identities in the Dutch Republic, England and Germany.