The Church through the French Revolution

The French government’s longtime historical association with the Roman Catholic Church began in earnest when Charlemagne (768-814) became the first emperor to receive a papal coronation in 800. Through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the Catholic Church controlled civil records and held a monopoly over hospitals and primary and secondary education. The Church was the largest landowner in the country, and was financed through a crop tax. Nobles filled the higher ranks of the French Catholic Church, creating strong government-Church links. The strongly pro-Catholic government of the Ancien Régime persecuted the Huguenots (French Protestants) during the Protestant Reformation, and the French Wars of Religion raged for the better part of the 16th century. King Henri IV granted amnesty to the Huguenots in the Edict of Nantes (1598), which opened a path for secularism and tolerance. When Louis XIV revoked the Edict in 1685, persecution resumed, a large number of French Protestants emigrated, and Catholicism regained its status as France’s official religion. The French Revolution (1789-1799) saw a radical shift in power away from the Catholic Church as Church property was confiscated and the crop tax and special clergy privileges were eliminated. With the 1790 Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the clergy became employees of the state and the Catholic Church became a subordinate arm of the secular French government. Traditional Christian holidays were abolished and Roman Catholic priests were brutally suppressed through mass imprisonment and massacres.