Editing Religious persecution (section)

====Religious uniformity in early modern Europe====
{{Main|Religious uniformity}}
[[File:La masacre de San Bartolomé, por François Dubois.jpg|thumb|The [[St. Bartholomew's Day massacre]] of French Protestants in 1572]]
By contrast to the notion of civil tolerance in [[early modern Europe]], the subjects were required to attend the [[state church]]; this attitude can be described as ''territoriality'' or ''[[religious uniformity]]'', and its underlying assumption is brought to a point by a statement of the Anglican theologian [[Richard Hooker]]: "There is not any man of the Church of England, but the same man is also a member of the [English] commonwealth; nor any man a member of the commonwealth, which is not also of the Church of England."<ref>''The Works of Richard Hooker'', II, p. 485; quoted after: John Coffey (2000), p. 33</ref>

Before a vigorous debate about religious persecution took place in England (starting in the 1640s), for centuries in Europe, religion had been tied to territory. In England, there had been several [[Act of Uniformity (disambiguation)|Acts of Uniformity]]; in continental Europe, the Latin phrase "[[cuius regio, eius religio]]" had been coined in the 16th century and applied as a fundament for the [[Peace of Augsburg]] (1555). It was pushed to the extreme by [[Absolute monarchy|absolutist regime]]s, particularly by the French kings [[Louis XIV]] and his successors. It was under their rule that [[Catholicism]] became the sole compulsory allowed religion in France and that the [[huguenots]] had to massively leave the country. Persecution meant that the state was committed to secure religious uniformity by coercive measures, as eminently obvious in a statement of [[Roger L'Estrange]]: "That which you call persecution, I translate Uniformity".<ref>quoted after Coffey (2000), 27</ref>

However, in the 17th century, writers like [[Pierre Bayle]], [[John Locke]], [[Richard Overton (pamphleteer)|Richard Overton]] and Roger William broke the link between territory and faith, which eventually resulted in a shift from territoriality to religious voluntarism.<ref name=Coffey58>Coffey 2000: 58.</ref> It was Locke who, in his [[A Letter Concerning Toleration|Letter Concerning Toleration]], defined the state in purely secular terms:<ref name=Coffey57>Coffey 2000: 57.</ref> "The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests."<ref name=Locke89>{{Cite web|date=1689 | title= A letter concerning toleration| author1= John Locke | author1-link= John Locke | translator= William Popple |url=http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/locke/locke2/locke-t/locke_toleration.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150414011127/http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/locke/locke2/locke-t/locke_toleration.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2015-04-14 }}</ref> Concerning the church, he went on: "A church, then, I take to be a voluntary society of men, joining themselves together of their own accord."<ref name=Locke89/> With this treatise, John Locke laid one of the most important intellectual foundations of the [[separation of church and state]], which ultimately led to the [[secular state]].