Archives départementales des Deux-Sèvres
Conference on ‘Protestants and Catholics in Moyen Poitou from the 16th to the 18th century’, presented by Fabrice Vigier. Thursday 5 December 2024 at 6pm, Exhibition hall of the Archives départementales, 26 rue de la Blauderie, Niort, free admission.
Coralie Dénoues
President of the Deux-Sèvres Departmental Council
Philippe Mauffrey
Departmental Councillor in charge of the Departmental Archives
invites you to the conference : “Protestants and Catholics in Moyen Poitou from the 16th to the 18th century”, presented by Fabrice Vigier, Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Poitiers.
Thursday 5 December at 6pm, in the exhibition hall of the Archives départementales, 26 rue de la Blauderie, Niort.
In the 1540s and 1550s, the first Reformed communities appeared in Moyen Poitou, becoming the majority in the Melle and Saint-Maixent areas. This marked the beginning of a long period of extremely difficult coexistence between Catholics and Protestants in Poitou throughout the Ancien Régime. During this period, Calvinists were subjected to the Wars of Religion in the second half of the 16th century, persecution under the reign of Louis XIV, and then clandestinity for most of the Age of Enlightenment, before the Edict of 1787 and the French Revolution gave them genuine recognition.
Free admission