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By a policy adopted at the beginning of the 16th century, adulterous women during the ancien régime were sentenced to a lifetime in a convent unless pardoned by their husbands and were rarely allowed to remarry even if widowed.
By a policy adopted at the beginning of the 16th century, adulterous women during the ancien régime were sentenced to a lifetime in a convent unless pardoned by their husbands and were rarely allowed to remarry even if widowed.
==Church==
==Church==
===Monastaries===
The religious violence in 16th-century France erupted within the context of instability in municipal authority. There was normally room for tolerance of Protestantism in the community; in the early 17th century, a culture of religious coexistence existed based on the [[Edict of Nantes]] (1598), which gave the Huguenots (Protestants) considerable legal rights. There also seems to have a sort of routine tolerance in the everyday life of mixed communities, which remained almost normal as long as both churches were unable to shift back toward orthodox intransigence. Against this background, the agitation of the 1620s revealed how unmotivated the Protestants really had become, since their political fate had in fact been sealed around 1575, after the [[Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre]].
From the end of the Wars of Religion to the French Revolution, Menat, a Cluniac abbey dating back to 1107, ruled over the Sioule Valley in the northwest region of the Clermont diocese. The monks were large landholders and developed a diversified and complex set of links with their neighbors; they received seignorial rights, provided work to the rural poor, and were in daily contact with notaries public, merchants, and surgeons. While they did not directly manage the religious life of the faithful (parish priests did that), monks did constitute a motivating force in it through their setting up of a parish clergy, providing alms and social services, and playing the role of intercessors. Until the French Revolution, the monastic community constituted a key element of the economic, social, and religious life of a local French territory under the Old Regime.
Montpelier was among the most important of the 66 "villes de sûreté" that the Edict of 1598 granted to the Huguenots. The city's political institutions and the university were all handed over to the Huguenots. Tension with Paris led to a siege by the royal army in 1622. Peace terms called for the dismantling of the city's fortifications. A royal citadel was built and the university and consulate were taken over by the Catholic party. Even before the Edict of Alès (1629), Protestant rule was dead and the ville de sûreté was no more.
By 162- the Huguenots were on the defensive, and the government increasingly applied pressure. A series of small civil wars that broke out in southern France between 1610 and 1635 were long considered by historians to be regional squabbles between rival noble families. New analysis shows that these civil wars were in fact religious in nature, remnants of the French Wars of Religion that largely ended with the Edict of Nantes in 1598. Small wars in the provinces of Languedoc and Guyenne show Catholic and Calvinist groups using destruction of churches, iconoclasm, forced conversions, and the execution of heretics as weapons of choice.
Louis XIV acted more and more aggressively to force the Huguenots to convert. At first he sent missionaries to convert them, backed by a a fund to financially reward converts to Catholicism. Then he imposed penalties and closed their schools and excluded them from favorite professions. Escalating the attack, he tried to forcibly re-Catholicize the Huguenots by the employment of armed dragonnades (soldiers) to occupy and loot their houses, and finally by the revocation (Oct. 18, 1685) of the liberal [[Edict of Nantes]] of 1598. The revocation forbade Protestant services, the children were to be educated as Catholics, and emigration was prohibited. It proved disastrous to the Huguenots and costly for France. It precipitated civil bloodshed, ruined commerce, and resulted in the illegal flight from the country of about 180,000 Protestants, many of whom became intellectuals, doctors and business leaders in Britain as well as Holland, Prussia and South Africa. 4000 went to the American colonies. The English welcomed the French refugees, providing money from both government and private agencies to aid their relocation. Those Huguenots who stayed in France became Catholics and were called "new converts." Only a few Protestant villages remained in isolated areas.<ref>John Wolf, ''Louis XIV'', ch 24; Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, "Escape from Babylon." ''Christian History'' 2001 20(3): 38-42. Issn: 0891-9666 Fulltext: [[Ebsco]] </ref>
Louis XIV supported the Gallican cause that gave the government a greater role than the pope in choosing bishops, and gave the government the revenues when a bishopric was vacant. There would be no inquisition in France, and papal decrees could operate only after the government approved them. Louis avoided schism--he wanted more royal power over the French Church but did not want to break free of Rome. The pope likewise recognized the the "most Christian king" was a powerful ally who could not be alienated.<ref>John Wolf, ''Louis XIV'', 388-92</ref>
===Monasteries===
From the end of the Wars of Religion to the French Revolution, Menat, a Cluniac abbey dating back to 1107, ruled over the Sioule Valley in the northwest region of the Clermont diocese. The monks were large landholders and developed a diversified and complex set of links with their neighbors; they received seigniorial rights, provided work to the rural poor, and were in daily contact with notaries public, merchants, and surgeons. While they did not directly manage the religious life of the faithful (parish priests did that), monks did constitute a motivating force in it through their setting up of a parish clergy, providing alms and social services, and playing the role of intercessors. Until the French Revolution, the monastic community constituted a key element of the economic, social, and religious life of a local French territory under the Old Regime.
===Convents===
===Convents===
Communities of nuns in France on the eve of Revolution had, on average, 25 members and a median age of 48 years. Nuns were both entering the profession later and living longer than before. In general, they had little wealth. Recruitment varied from region to region and by convent lifestyle (active or contemplative, austere or opulent, lower class or middle class). The nature of male and female monasticism differed greatly in France both before and during the revolution. Convents tended to be more isolated and less centrally controlled. This made for greater diversity among them than among male monasteries.<ref>Elizabeth Rapley and Robert Rapley, "An Image of Religious Women in the 'Ancien Regime:' the 'Etats Des Religieuses' of 1790-1791." ''French History'' 1997 11(4): 387-410 </ref>
Communities of nuns in France on the eve of Revolution had, on average, 25 members and a median age of 48 years. Nuns were both entering the profession later and living longer than before. In general, they had little wealth. Recruitment varied from region to region and by convent lifestyle (active or contemplative, austere or opulent, lower class or middle class). The nature of male and female monasticism differed greatly in France both before and during the revolution. Convents tended to be more isolated and less centrally controlled. This made for greater diversity among them than among male monasteries.<ref>Elizabeth Rapley and Robert Rapley, "An Image of Religious Women in the 'Ancien Regime:' the 'Etats Des Religieuses' of 1790-1791." ''French History'' 1997 11(4): 387-410 </ref>
==Economy==
==Economy==
Two massive famines struck France between 1693 and 1710, killing over two million people. In both cases the impact of harvest failure was exacerbated by wartime demands on the food supply.<ref> Cormac Ó Gráda and Jean-Michel Chevet, "Famine and Market in 'Ancien Regime' France." ''Journal of Economic History'' 2002 62(3): 706-733 online</ref>
Two massive famines struck France between 1693 and 1710, killing over two million people. In both cases the impact of harvest failure was exacerbated by wartime demands on the food supply.<ref> Cormac Ó Gráda and Jean-Michel Chevet, "Famine and Market in 'Ancien Regime' France." ''Journal of Economic History'' 2002 62(3): 706-733 online</ref>