Religious wars and the legacy of a divided Europe

Confessional division fed prolonged armed conflict across Europe. In France, the Catholic majority and the Calvinist Huguenot minority fought the Wars of Religion (1562-1598), marked by the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of thousands of Huguenots in Paris in 1572; the conflict ended when Henry of Navarre, having converted to Catholicism, became King Henry IV and issued the Edict of Nantes (1598), granting Huguenots limited toleration, later revoked by Louis XIV in 1685.