Please see Styx thread on the Registered Shipmates consultation for the main discussion forums - your views are important, continues until April 4th.

Purgatory : Notre Dame de Paris: identity and theology of place

13»

Comments

  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    The Huguenot ancestor is one of the enduring myths of Scottish Protestants. In the early C20th many Scots names were claimed to be corruptions of a French name. Then the fad died down, but now, with the upswing in popularity of genealogy, people are unearthing old family trees and it is back.

    Research has shown that most Huguenots headed for London, with a trickle going to Edinburgh, and very few, if any, thought that living in rural C17th Scotland was an attractive proposition.

    At the time of the 2016 referendum, I wondered if the reason so many Scots felt European is because of this pervasive myth that half of us have Huguenot ancestry. Thinking about it, I wonder if the Huguenot ancestor was a way of distancing Scottish Protestants from Irish Catholic immigrants in the early C20th. A sort of "we're not just Protestants, we're Protestants who have fled persecution."
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    Research has shown that most Huguenots headed for London, with a trickle going to Edinburgh, and very few, if any, thought that living in rural C17th Scotland was an attractive proposition.

    AIUI many Huguenots who were skilled linen weavers came to Ireland. This was the start of the Irish linen industry.

    On a different note, the colony of Virginia paid to bring two boatloads of Huguenot refugees from Jersey around 1700. They were granted land at Maniken.

  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Research has shown that most Huguenots headed for London, with a trickle going to Edinburgh, and very few, if any, thought that living in rural C17th Scotland was an attractive proposition.

    My Northern Irish grandfather, who doubtless originated from Scotland before that, certainly thought the family was descended from Huguenot stock, and there are a couple of names round where I live that aren't too far from my surname (common in Scotland and NI but almost nowhere else).

    Talking of spirit of place, what is odd is that my children unanimously felt at home in Scotland in a way they found hard to describe (which is odd in and of itself for them) the very first time they set foot there.

    I too have visited the Huguenot memorial in Franschhoek. My thought was that as in other places dissenters arrived fleeing persecution, the OT narratives of an oppressed people finding the promised land and driving out the pagan tribes were rather too much at the forefront of their minds.

    (I also learned quite a lot about SA driving habits on that trip, notably that overtaking involves the car being overtaken moving over, not the other way around, and that flashing one's hazard lights means "thank you" and not "slow down").
  • Moo wrote: »
    ndustry.On a different note, the colony of Virginia paid to bring two boatloads of Huguenot refugees from Jersey around 1700. They were granted land at Maniken.
    Which is where my Huguenot ancestors settled.
    fineline wrote: »
    I agree beauty is important. I suppose to me, the most beauty is not in expensive buildings, but in the natural world, and in each other. And holiness is not something to be preserved, like a pickle, but always there, alive and fresh, from God, and can be expressed through people. It is something we renew constantly by returning to God, focusing on God, and loving others with his love.
    I agree beauty is found in other people and in the natural world. But it’s not a competition, is it? Just because beauty is found in those places doesn’t mean it can’t be found in buildings and other places crafted by people. Places like Notre Dame—as well as small country churches, or homes, or many other kinds of buildings—reflect the lives and the beauty of the people who built them and who have come to them over the years. To me, they’re all tied up together.

  • GalilitGalilit Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    To me, they’re all tied up together.

    Indeed! Well said!

  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Nick, no, not a competition at all. I was responding to the idea that if a place of beauty was destroyed, it was essential to restore it because beauty must be preserved. I see beauty as popping up everywhere, something dynamic rather than static, so I personally don't feel a sense that the destruction of a beautiful building is diminishing the world of its beauty.

    As I said, I'm not suggesting it shouldn't be restored - I simply don't feel strongly about it, and don't see its restoration as an equivalent to Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus with expensive perfume before his death. I think the point Jesus was making was quite different from 'give us bread but give us roses.' Though equally I don't see a very expensive building as an equivalent to roses either. Not a competition, bit different things.

    With regard to using the money to feed the poor, I imagine the money it makes from tourists might help the economy in general, but I'm not sure. It makes sense to me, anyway, that it is being restored, for practical reasons. It is a popular building.
  • La vie en rouge - there is no way that I would wish to downplay the part played by French Catholics in what you describe as 'state sponsored genocide'. If you think because I describe other forms of religious and ethnic discrimination and persecution that I don't appreciate the part played by Catholics then you are very wrong.
    Of course I agree with you entirely that two wrongs don't make a right.
    From my own personal experience of religious discrimination as well as other forms of discrimination I know that it is those who are on the suffering side who notice it more.
    Those who are doing the persecuting and discriminating are often unaware of what they are doing.
    That was my point about the casual racism of the 1930s which I attempted to describe.
    The author was poor, looked down upon by many others but he was aware, rightly or wrongly, that he was in a better position than those who did not have a white skin.
    We would not say that out loudly today , although a certain number of 'white' people will still think that., both in the UK and in France.


    When talking about the assertion that you say I make that the majority of French people are Catholic in any meaningful sense, then I would ask you to define what you mean by 'meaningful sense'. How can you live in a 'bastion of the Catholic bourgeoisie' if there are no Catholics there ? However the overwhelming majority of French people will live within hearing distance of the bells of a Catholic church and that is still the background for the religious history of their country. I mean it no more than the undoubted fact that most people in the UK would describe themselves as 'Protestant' even though they may have little idea of what that means.

    You are mistaken if you think that I think that 'proper French people' are white and don't have immigrant backgrounds. I have never in my life attempted to give that impression, although I know that there are some people in France and Catholics at that who would think that way, just as there are indeed some people in the UK who think that way. I am not of their number.
    Both in France as indeed also in the UK the Catholic church relies to some significant extent on immigrant clergy often from Africa or Asia and if you attend any Catholic church you will often find more of the worshippers who come from Africa or Asia than their presence in the general population would imply.
    I don't know anything about Kylian Mbabbe',so I am not thinking about him, again you are right, but immediately it strikes me that Kylian is a Catholic name.

    I don't expect people who come from an Islamic background to be Catholic. I respect their right to be Muslim and French. There are apparently,in spite of no questions about religious affiliation ,more French Muslims than French Protestants, but that surely does not make them any more or less French.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    I call it state-sponsored genocide because that's what it was: one of, if not the most deadly religious persecution in the history of the world prior to the twentieth century. If we're going to talk about France's Catholic past and France's Catholic majority I don't see how we can get around this. France might well have rather less of a Catholic majority without the violent liquidation of its non-Catholic population a few centuries back. The history of religious genocide is one of the reasons for today's secular state.

    When I say I live in a bastion of the Catholic bourgeoisie I mean that it's an area with a noticeably larger Catholic population than elsewhere. If you are bourgeois, Catholic and not rich enough for the 16th, the 15th is where you live. Even here, Catholics are not the majority. A significant constituency, certainly, but not "most people".
  • W
    fineline wrote: »
    Nick, no, not a competition at all. I was responding to the idea that if a place of beauty was destroyed, it was essential to restore it because beauty must be preserved. I see beauty as popping up everywhere, something dynamic rather than static, so I personally don't feel a sense that the destruction of a beautiful building is diminishing the world of its beauty.

    As I said, I'm not suggesting it shouldn't be restored - I simply don't feel strongly about it, and don't see its restoration as an equivalent to Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus with expensive perfume before his death. I think the point Jesus was making was quite different from 'give us bread but give us roses.' Though equally I don't see a very expensive building as an equivalent to roses either. Not a competition, bit different things.
    Thanks fineline. I understand where you’re coming from better, and I think you raise valid points.

    I think where I’d quibble is in seeing this as just about preserving/restoring a place of beauty. Sometimes, and I think this is one of those times, beauty is somewhat inseparable from meaning. Notre Dame is a place that means something to (many) people because of its beauty, but it is also beautiful because of the meaning it carries.

    Granted, as has been shown in this thread, the meaning Notre Dame carries is not consistent from person to person. It may be religious, cultural, historical, artistic, some combination of these, or something else.

    So when there is an urge to restore a place like Notre Dame, I think more is at play than just “we should restore it because it was beautiful.” It’s more “we should restore it because of what it means,” because even if we’re not agreed on what it means, we see beauty in what it means.

    Hope that makes at least some sense.
  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    edited April 2019
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    W
    fineline wrote: »
    Nick, no, not a competition at all. I was responding to the idea that if a place of beauty was destroyed, it was essential to restore it because beauty must be preserved. I see beauty as popping up everywhere, something dynamic rather than static, so I personally don't feel a sense that the destruction of a beautiful building is diminishing the world of its beauty.

    As I said, I'm not suggesting it shouldn't be restored - I simply don't feel strongly about it, and don't see its restoration as an equivalent to Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus with expensive perfume before his death. I think the point Jesus was making was quite different from 'give us bread but give us roses.' Though equally I don't see a very expensive building as an equivalent to roses either. Not a competition, bit different things.
    Thanks fineline. I understand where you’re coming from better, and I think you raise valid points.

    I think where I’d quibble is in seeing this as just about preserving/restoring a place of beauty. Sometimes, and I think this is one of those times, beauty is somewhat inseparable from meaning. Notre Dame is a place that means something to (many) people because of its beauty, but it is also beautiful because of the meaning it carries.

    Granted, as has been shown in this thread, the meaning Notre Dame carries is not consistent from person to person. It may be religious, cultural, historical, artistic, some combination of these, or something else.

    So when there is an urge to restore a place like Notre Dame, I think more is at play than just “we should restore it because it was beautiful.” It’s more “we should restore it because of what it means,” because even if we’re not agreed on what it means, we see beauty in what it means.

    Hope that makes at least some sense.

    Yes, that makes sense, but is not a quibble with what I was saying, because you addressed only one part of my post, which was the aspect of beauty, so of course the ensuing conversation with you was only about beauty. My initial post was a response to Rossweisse, where she talked about the importance of preserving three things, one of which was beauty. I addressed all three, but you quoted and questioned only what I said about beauty.

    From a bigger perspective, and as you may deduce if you read the full post, and what I have posted previously on this thread, I actually don't agree with your reasoning. Attributed meaning is what this thread is about, and I'm not sure there is consensus that we all see beauty in what it means. When I visited it, the overarching sense that I got was that it was a very popular tourist attraction. And the meaning I see many people attributing to it (not here, but elsewhere online) is one that seems to me to boil down to: 'In my extensive travels to important cultural places, because I'm an important, cultured person, I have visited this place, and I know it's important and cultural, and I feel important expressing the fact that I visited it and that I therefore have a connection with this tragedy and can take part in some important, global, cultural sadness.'
  • By using the words 'state sponsored genocide' la vie en rouge puts the responsibility for the 'genocide' on to the state, rather than the Catholic church or maybe that is not what she means.
    It is reckoned that eight million died in the religious conflicts in Germany called the Thirty Years War. Now it is difficult to call that 'state sponsored genocide' as the idea of a state meant something different in the German lands. Not only the German states were involved but the Danes, the Swedes, the Dutch and even the French monarchy which took time off persecuting Protestants to fight in the Thirty Years War on the Protestant side against their great rivals ,the Catholic Hapsburgs . Let's say it was four million Catholic supporters who died and four million Protestant supporters - either way it is a big number
    .

    I totally agree with la vie en rouge that France lost a lot due to the forced conversions and the emigrations of Protestants. The percentage of Protestants in France (of all stripes)might well be much more than today's 2%. However we are where we are. If Henry VIII hadn't wanted to marry Anne Boleyn or if Mary Tudor hadn't died without producing an heir, the English might be Catholics today.

    Approximately 64% of the French population identify as in some way being Catholic and more have some knowledge of having seen or possibly having been in a Catholic church or having attended some sort of Catholic ceremony. And yes,I know and understand that the actual regular participation at regular worship, well you're lucky if you get 5%.

    In the final analysis, dear vie en rouge, I think we are both on the same side. We would both like to see our neighbours and fellow citizens take a greater interest in the person and message of Jesus Christ. We can each in our own way be proud of our communities. We can each at times regret what has happened in the past and try to make our way forward together.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited April 2019
    Forthview wrote: »
    By using the words 'state sponsored genocide' la vie en rouge puts the responsibility for the 'genocide' on to the state, rather than the Catholic church or maybe that is not what she means.

    Where's the rolleyes smiley when you need it?

    At that time there was no such thing as the 'state' outwith the Catholic church. That's the point.

    Birth marriage and death registers in France are called the Etat civil ('Civil State') because prior to the Civil State it was... guess what? A Religious, Catholic State.

    Stop the whataboutery of invoking other conflicts. The one @la vie en rouge and I are talking about is one that reportedly turned the streets of our adoptive capital red with protestant blood.
    In the final analysis, dear vie en rouge, I think we are both on the same side.
    In my final analysis, dear @Forthview, you haven't really acknowledged what either @la vie en rouge or I are saying at all, and it's rather presumptuous to assume that we are on the same side as you as regards the issue in hand.
  • RicardusRicardus Shipmate
    More generally, I'd like to know on what you are basing your assertion that the majority of French people are Catholic in any meaningful sense. I live in a bastion of the Catholic bourgeoisie (the 15th arrondissement of Paris) and even here this just doesn't describe people I know.

    It's over ten years since I lived in France, but IME, among the non-churchgoing population, ignorance and indifference towards Christianity was total. I remember a professeur agrégé (i.e., a teacher at a lycée who had passed an exam to prove they were especially clever) claiming that the Holy Trinity meant God, the Bible and the Pope.
  • @fineline, I apologize if I failed to take in all of what you were saying. I also apologize if I wasn’t clear, as I didn’t mean to suggest that “we all see beauty in what [Notre Dame] means.” What I was trying to say was that people attribute a variety of meanings to Notre Dame—including but certainly not limited to religious holy place; to embodiment of French culture, ethos or history; artistic masterpiece; and/or popular tourist attraction—and that many times (though certainly not always), the beauty perceived is tied to the meaning attributed. I certainly would not deny that for others, it’s more like response you describe.
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    I don't know the numbers, but I do know that the population of Germany at the end of the Thirty Years War was half what it was at the beginning. Most of these were not military deaths, since relatively few of the soldiers were German. The deaths were due to starvation and disease because battles were fought on crop fields and because soldiers took the peasants' food.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    (May I just say that one piece of Notre-Dame which I did not find beautiful, and which was not historic, and which was not artistically significant, and was only marginally sacred, was the Post-Vatican II altar. It was worthy of a bad production of Bellini's pseudo-Druid opera Norma, and I am not sorry that it will have to be replaced.)

  • LeRocLeRoc Shipmate
    I agree with people who said that people are more important than places. But I also admit that I can be moved being in a place where people have prayed for centuries.
  • Rossweisse wrote: »
    (May I just say that one piece of Notre-Dame which I did not find beautiful, and which was not historic, and which was not artistically significant, and was only marginally sacred, was the Post-Vatican II altar. It was worthy of a bad production of Bellini's pseudo-Druid opera Norma, and I am not sorry that it will have to be replaced.)

    I'm with you on this one.

    It's one thing to put a glass pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre and quite another to put a piece of post-modern expressionist brutalist minimalist heaven-knows-what-ist in the center of a gothic cathedral.

    If ever there was a facepalm moment, it was when I first laid eyes on it. A genuine WITEF.

    AFF



  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    ...It's one thing to put a glass pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre and quite another to put a piece of post-modern expressionist brutalist minimalist heaven-knows-what-ist in the center of a gothic cathedral.

    If ever there was a facepalm moment, it was when I first laid eyes on it. A genuine WITEF. ...
    Ahh-men. (In opera, we would call that thing "Eurotrash.")

    You can do better than that, French persons!

  • finelinefineline Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    @Nick Tamen Thanks for clarifying. I think that is more or less how I understood you the first time, though I saw your saying 'Even if we're not agreed on what it means, we see beauty in what it means' as suggesting a general consensus of beauty in meaning.

    Maybe we are talking at cross purposes, because I am not talking about denying anything to anyone - it is not in my power to do so anyway, of course.

    Many things in life have many meanings to many people, and these things do often get destroyed, or deteriorate over time. My point was more that (in my opinion) this is okay. This is life. Earthly things do rot away or get destroyed, and it can be sad at the time, but beauty and sacredness and history do still continue, in all sorts of new ways too. I don't see restoring such places as absolutely essential, though I am also not saying they shouldn't be restored. There are all sorts of factors to consider.

    Again, my point was that I do not see Jesus being anointed with expensive perfume before his death by a person who loved him as the same as Notre Dame being restored. This is something I feel strongly, as the value of an expensive building cannot be likened to the value of the living, personal presence of Jesus. To me, that contradicts the meaning and message of Christ's life. All the points I was making were to that end. I think suggesting the money might have been better used helping to the poor is a valid question, worth at least considering rather than being dismissed by an analogy which seems to elevate the value of a building to the value of Jesus. Because Jesus may say 'I was hungry and you didn't feed me,' but I doubt he's going to be saying 'I was a beautiful, historical building that got burned, and you didn't restore me.' I would suggest that it is quite possible to have an abundance of beauty, history and hallowedness in the world without needing to spend millions on a building. I'm not denying the building as such, but suggesting a parallel world in which it didn't get restored may not be the poorer world people seem to be assuming.
  • Eutychus, of course the French monarchy/state was a Catholic state, but from the point of view of those in power
    it was a monarchy principally which made use of the Catholic church to further the ends of the state. Otherwise how can we explain that the Catholic state of France fought on the Protestant side in the Thirty Years War ?
    All religious communities, as well as secular ones, with a past have incidents which they have to regret, and the Catholic Church as the largest and oldest of European communities
    has more than others to regret.

    I am ashamed of the part which the Catholic Church in France played in the virtual destruction of Protestantism.

    I am ashamed of the attitudes which many Catholic had and which some still have towards the Jews.

    I am ashamed of each and every abuse of power carried out by members of the Catholic Church, particularly in respect of those who were committed to its care, and in this I might mention the homes many centuries ago for the 'nouveaux convertis' and 'nouvelles converties'
    In invoking other conflicts which may or may not have had a religious component I am trying to point out that society at other times might have had other viewpoints including the idea that the extirpation of Protestantism would lead to a cleansing of society. Where there is (still today !!) large scale repression and destruction it often has to do with the state trying to wipe out other groups which threaten the existence of the powerful.

    Only 50 years ago most/many/some people in Europe would have had different views of matters like racism, homosexuality, divorce and same-sex marriage. Who is to say that today's 'orthodoxy' will be the same 50 years hence ? Some religious groups will adapt to the mores of the day and others will bury their heads in the sand in the expectation that things will change yet again.

    I am not sure what your attitude to today's Catholic Church in France is - sometimes you say it has no part to play in society and at other times you imply that it has too much influence.

    Eutychus wrote earlier about 'our' archbishop. Assuming that this archbishop was a Catholic one (French Protestants don't have bishops, never mind archbishops ) should I not assume that, in spite of our differences as to the meaning of what the Church is, was, can or should be, these difference pale before the common confession of the Passion,salvific Death and glorious Resurrection of Jesus Christ ? Happy Easter and now I shall bow out.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Purgatory Host, Circus Host
    Before you do... I do not in the least appreciate being addressed as "My dear la vie en rouge". It is patronising and condescending and I very much doubt you would have called me that if I'd been male. Kindly apologise.
  • If I have offended you by referring to you as 'dear' then, of course I apologise immediately.

    It was most certainly not meant to be patronising nor indeed condescending, but rather in the spirit that one might treat all Christians as 'mes tres chers freres et soeurs' (dear brothers and sisters)
  • I must admit that for all my love of things old and ancient, I was rather taken aback to find a US friend whose husband is a medieval historian posting on a well known social media platform that she couldn't give a stuff about people - they are transitory - what was important was saving Notre Dame. This was in response to a post where someone observed that the surrounding area was being evacuated. She was posting as the news was breaking. Rolling news, rolling posts, rolling eyes.

    To be fair, she tempered things when it became apparent that things could have been worse.

    Even so ...

    She's a Lutheran but highly critical of the iconoclastic Huguenots and later French Revolutionaries who damaged Notre Dame.

    It has to be said that not all the Huguenots were cute and cuddly. But given the scale of the persecutions they endured then it's hardly surprising that some reacted in whacky ways.

    As Auden put it, 'Those to whom evil is done/ Do evil in return.'

    These things are never clear cut. The persecution of the Scottish Covenanters was grim, but to some extent the more extreme among them were provoking a strong reaction.

    All that said, I do think that the unprecedented scale and severity of the persecution of the Huguenots, with the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre and mass expulsions etc is of quite a different order and shouldn't really be compared with The 30 Years War as most casualties in that conflict came from collateral damage such as disease and famine rather than the deliberate targeting of civilian populations.

    Estimates vary as to the number of Huguenots massacred in Paris on St Bartholomew's Day but even if one goes with the more conservative and lower estimates it's still a sizeable atrocity by any standards.

    In the British Isles it's been estimated that the total number of deaths by execution etc during the religious controversies of the 16th and 17th centuries were pretty evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants.

    I'm not sure what crumb of comfort that affords.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    fineline wrote: »
    ...Again, my point was that I do not see Jesus being anointed with expensive perfume before his death by a person who loved him as the same as Notre Dame being restored. This is something I feel strongly, as the value of an expensive building cannot be likened to the value of the living, personal presence of Jesus. ...
    And I was not actually comparing the value of Notre-Dame to that of Jesus. I was just saying that restoring a beautiful, historic building with worldwide resonance - one that is, to many millions of people, a sacred place - is a valid concern and a worthy cause.

    Someone else wrote "Bread and roses." That's the title of a (feminist, pro-union) song by James Oppenheim. The relevant line here is "Hearts starve as well as bodies/Give us bread, but give us roses." And that's what I was trying to express (apparently ineptly) with the quote from Mark 14.




  • The week before the fire, several Jason Silva videos were in my FB feed.

    I don't particularly care for his style or delivery but I guess in a generation whose attention span is shorter than 144 characters, it's important to seem to be so emphatic.

    I commented that the builders of the Gothic cathedrals were perfectly aware of what he was talking about, and that Sacred Geometry is a Thing.

    Here for your consideration, Jason Silva introduces the concept of ontological design
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9W-X4spkhQ

    and Why Design is Important
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL0rNJz4LXc

    AFF
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    Not all the Huguenots were cute and cuddly. But given the scale of the persecutions they endured then it's hardly surprising that some reacted in whacky ways. .

    Yes, historical records show that one of my Huguenot ancestors was an extreme killjoy. He objected to innocent pleasures such as dancing. He probably thought there was no such thing as an innocent pleasure.

  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    Moo wrote: »
    Yes, historical records show that one of my Huguenot ancestors was an extreme killjoy. He objected to innocent pleasures such as dancing. He probably thought there was no such thing as an innocent pleasure.
    ...whereas one of the reasons mine left England (whence they had washed up after leaving the Netherlands, after fleeing France) was supposedly that the English Puritans were too strict.


  • And the Scots were even stricter ... (more strict? Maastricht?)

    I always got the impression, though, that the Huguenots weren't as strict and iconoclastic as some of the English Puritans and Independents, but there were some wild and wooly ones like the 'Prophets of The Cevannes'.

    Some of these guys got it into their heads, rather like the Ghost Dancers among the Sioux and the Boxer Rebels in China, that they could make themselves impervious to bullets. So they rushed headlong into battle only to be shot down.

    I seem to remember reading somewhere that John Wesley took some of the accounts seriously that gifts of tongues and prophecy were occasionally extant among the Huguenots.

    On the whole, though, they appear to have been an industrious and enterprising bunch, rather more bourgeois and understated than staring eyed religious enthusiasts.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host, Glory
    ...On the whole, though, they appear to have been an industrious and enterprising bunch, rather more bourgeois and understated than staring eyed religious enthusiasts.
    Yes. The English, Dutch, and Germans were all apparently quite enthusiastic, on the whole, about bringing the Huguenots in, and in some cases assisted them in their escapes from France. (Our guide at the Protestant Museum told us that German towns competed for them.) Huguenot weavers built major businesses in England.



  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Research has shown that most Huguenots headed for London, with a trickle going to Edinburgh, and very few, if any, thought that living in rural C17th Scotland was an attractive proposition.

    My Northern Irish grandfather, who doubtless originated from Scotland before that, certainly thought the family was descended from Huguenot stock, and there are a couple of names round where I live that aren't too far from my surname (common in Scotland and NI but almost nowhere else).

    Similarly, with my family. We also have an unusually spelt version of a family name (I've never come across anyone yet who shares it) which can be found on a memorial plaque in Canterbury Cathedral (I think?) commemorating some Huguenot immigrants coming over to England at that time. Another family name still extant locates us as French/English/Scots borders - finishing in Ulster. And another name, hails from the south of Ireland - possibly a former Catholic branch who 'took the soup' - though again it's a part of the family associated with Scottish connections in later life.

    Quite a mixture!
Sign In or Register to comment.