Editing Huguenots (section)

==Etymology==
[[File:Huguenot cross.svg|thumb|[[Huguenot cross]]]]
A term used originally in derision, ''Huguenot'' has unclear origins. Various hypotheses have been promoted. The term may have been a combined reference to the Swiss politician [[Besançon Hugues]] (died 1532) and the [[Reformation in Switzerland|religiously conflicted]] nature of [[Early Modern Switzerland|Swiss republicanism]] in his time. It used a derogatory [[pun]] on the name {{lang|fr|Hugues}} by way of the [[Dutch language|Dutch]] word {{lang|nl|Huisgenoten}} (literally 'housemates'), referring to the connotations of a somewhat related word in German {{lang|de|[[Eidgenossenschaft|Eidgenosse]]}} ('Confederate' in the sense of 'a citizen of one of the states of the Swiss Confederacy').<ref name="EB11">''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 11th ed, Frank Puaux, ''Huguenot''</ref>

[[Geneva]] was [[John Calvin]]'s adopted home and the centre of the Calvinist movement. In Geneva, Hugues, though [[Catholic]], was a leader of the "Confederate Party", so called because it favoured independence from the [[Duke of Savoy]]. It sought an [[Military alliance|alliance]] between the city-state of Geneva and the [[Old Swiss Confederacy|Swiss Confederation]]. The label ''Huguenot'' was purportedly first applied in France to those conspirators (all of them aristocratic members of the Reformed Church) who were involved in the [[Amboise conspiracy|Amboise plot]] of 1560: a foiled attempt to wrest power in France from the influential and [[Catholic League (French)|zealously Catholic]] [[House of Guise]]. This action would have fostered relations with the Swiss.

O. I. A. Roche promoted this idea among historians. He wrote in his book, ''The Days of the Upright, A History of the Huguenots'' (1965), that ''Huguenot'' is:

<blockquote>a combination of a Dutch and a German word. In the [[French Flanders|Dutch-speaking North of France]], Bible students who [[house church|gathered in each other's houses to study secretly]] were called {{lang|de|Huis Genooten}} ("housemates") while on the Swiss and German borders they were termed {{lang|de|Eid Genossen}}, or "oath fellows", that is, persons bound to each other by an [[oath]]. Gallicised into {{lang|fr|Huguenot}}, often used deprecatingly, the word became, during two and a half centuries of terror and triumph, a badge of enduring honour and courage.</blockquote>

Some disagree with such non-French linguistic origins. Janet Gray argues that for the word to have spread into common use in France, it must have originated there in French. The "Hugues hypothesis" argues that the name was derived by association with [[Hugh Capet|Hugues Capet]], king of France,<ref name="Gray">{{cite journal |first=Janet G. |last=Gray |title=The Origin of the Word Huguenot |journal=[[Sixteenth Century Journal]] |volume=14 |year=1983 |issue=3 |pages=349–359 |jstor=2540193 |doi=10.2307/2540193 |s2cid=163264114 }}</ref> who reigned long before the Reformation. He was regarded by the Gallicians as a noble man who respected people's dignity and lives. Janet Gray and other supporters of the hypothesis suggest that the name {{lang|fr|huguenote}} would be roughly equivalent to 'little Hugos', or 'those who want Hugo'.<ref name="Gray" />

[[Paul Ristelhuber]], in his 1879 introduction to a new edition of the controversial and censored, but popular<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henri-II-Estienne|title=Henri II Estienne &#124; Humanist, Latinist, Translator &#124; Britannica|website=www.britannica.com|date=29 February 2024 }}</ref> 1566 work ''Apologie pour Hérodote'', by [[Henri Estienne]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/apologiepourhr01estiuoft|title=Apologie pour Hérodote; satire de la société au XVIe siècle. Nouv. éd., faite sur la première et augm. de remarques par P. Ristelhuber|first1=Henri|last1=Estienne|first2=Paul|last2=Ristelhuber|date=6 September 1879|publisher=Paris I. Liseux|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> mentions these theories and opinions, but tends to support a completely Catholic origin. As one legend holds, a gateway area in the streets of Tours was haunted by the ghosts of {{lang|fr|le roi Huguet}} (a generic term for these spirits), "because they were wont to assemble near the gate named after Hugon, a Count of Tours in ancient times, who had left a record of evil deeds and had become in popular fancy a sort of sinister and maleficent genius. This count may have been [[Hugh of Tours]], who was disliked for his cowardice. Additionally, it is related, that, it was believed, (that of these spirits) instead of spending their time in Purgatory, came back to rattle doors and haunt and harm people at night. Protestants went out at nights to their lascivious conventicles, and so the priests and the people began to call them Huguenots in Tours and then elsewhere."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.patheos.com/blogs/leithart/2017/04/pollution-and-purgation-in-the-reformation/|title=Pollution and Purgation in the Reformation|date=11 April 2017}}</ref> The name, Huguenot, "the people applied in hatred and derision to those who were elsewhere called Lutherans, and from Touraine it spread throughout France."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07527b.htm|title=Catholic Encyclopedia: Huguenots|website=www.newadvent.org}}</ref> The {{lang|fr|prétendus réformés}} ('supposedly reformed') were said to gather at night at [[Tours]], both for political purposes, and for prayer and singing [[psalms]].<ref>[http://www.huguenot.netnation.com/general/huguenot.htm "Who Were the Huguenots?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171228135500/http://www.huguenot.netnation.com/general/huguenot.htm |date=28 December 2017 }}, The National Huguenot Society</ref> Reguier de la Plancha (d. 1560) in his {{lang|fr|De l'Estat de France}} offered the following account as to the origin of the name, as cited by ''The Cape Monthly'':

<blockquote>Reguier de la Plancha accounts for it [the name] as follows: "The name {{lang|fr|huguenand}} was given to those of the religion during the affair of Amboyse, and they were to retain it ever since. I'll say a word about it to settle the doubts of those who have strayed in seeking its origin. The superstition of our ancestors, to within twenty or thirty years thereabouts, was such that in almost all the towns in the kingdom they had a notion that certain spirits underwent their Purgatory in this world after death, and that they went about the town at night, striking and outraging many people whom they found in the streets. But the light of the Gospel has made them vanish, and teaches us that these spirits were street-strollers and ruffians. In Paris the spirit was called {{lang|fr|le moine bourré}}; at Orléans, {{lang|fr|le mulet odet}}; at Blois {{lang|fr|le loup garon}}; at Tours, {{lang|fr|le Roy Huguet}}; and so on in other places. Now, it happens that those whom they called Lutherans were at that time so narrowly watched during the day that they were forced to wait till night to assemble, for the purpose of praying God, for preaching and receiving the Holy Sacrament; so that although they did not frighten nor hurt anybody, the priests, through mockery, made them the successors of those spirits which roam the night; and thus that name being quite common in the mouth of the populace, to designate the evangelical {{lang|fr|huguenands}} in the country of Tourraine and Amboyse, it became in vogue after that enterprise."<ref name="capemonthly">''De l'Estat de France'' 1560, by Reguier de la Plancha, quoted by ''The Cape Monthly'' (February 1877), No. 82 Vol. XIV on p. 126. {{Internet Archive|id=capemonthlymagaz00cape|name=The Cape Monthly}}</ref></blockquote>

Some have suggested the name was derived, with intended scorn, from {{lang|fr|les guenon de Hus}} (the 'monkeys' or 'apes of [[Jan Hus]]').<ref>''Bibliothèque d'humanisme et Renaissance'', by Association d'humanisme et renaissance, 1958, p. 217</ref><ref>William Gilmore Simms, ''The Huguenots in Florida; Or, The Lily and the Totem'', 1854, p. 470</ref> By 1911, there was still no consensus in the United States on this interpretation.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=KKAR2MEwKRoC&dq=Origin+Huguenot&pg=RA1-PA241 George Lunt, "Huguenot – The origin and meaning of the name"], ''New England Historical & Genealogical Register'', Boston, 1908/1911, 241–246</ref>