Edict of Nantes

April 13, 1598

Henry IV issued the Edict of Nantes, granting French Protestants legal recognition, freedom of worship in specified towns, and control of a number of fortified places. It ended thirty-six years of religious war and gave France an awkward, workable compromise between two faiths that had been slaughtering each other. The provision granting Huguenots fortified places created a state within a state, troubling French unity until Louis XIV's revocation in 1685.