What was a significant outcome of the Edict of Nantes?

The Edict of Nantes, issued in 1598 by King Henry IV of France, is best known for its role in granting conditional religious freedoms to the Huguenots, who were French Calvinists. This was a significant development in the context of the prolonged religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants that had plagued France in the preceding decades. The Edict aimed to promote civil unity by allowing Calvinists to worship freely in certain designated areas and providing them with political rights, while still maintaining Catholocism as the state religion.

This compromise was crucial in establishing a degree of religious tolerance and mitigating the violence of the Wars of Religion that had disrupted France. It recognized the existence of Calvinism as legitimate within the framework of French society without fully endorsing it as an equal to Catholicism, thus ensuring a measure of stability and coexistence, albeit conditional.