Huguenot

Refers to French Protestants of the 16th and 17th centuries. After the Reformation began in Germany in 1517, it quickly spread to France, where it was particularly popular in areas that were economically depressed and populated by people who had grievances against the government. Although their numbers dwindled due to persecution and emigration, Huguenots were granted religious freedom with the French Revolution and the National Assembly in 1789. The Reformed Church of France, organized in 1938, merged a number of Reformed groups that had developed in France during and after the 16th-century.