German narratives about the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre

In Germany, the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre was seen as special but not unique. Confronted with the first news reports, German audiences turned to existing understandings of the nature of religious conflict to make sense of the traumatic stories. This article examines four broad and interrelated narrative frameworks that were used to explain the massacre. First, German Catholics and Lutherans, treasuring the orderly Peace of Augsburg, condemned the sedition of the Huguenots and saw the massacre as a regrettable but logical consequence of their rebellion. Secondly, rumours of conspiracy and equivocation abounded in the empire. These seemed to be confirmed by the massacre. Thirdly, fearing the erosion of noble prerogatives and the creation of ‘Turkish’ tyrannies, the massacre of the French nobility chimed in with German aristocratic anxieties. Finally, the horrific fate of so many fellow Christians in France led some to see the massacre as an eschatological event.