Hello Martin et al. Well, well. Controvery strikes in HWE !! Fancy that now :) > ........ St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre...., Catholics rightfully > killed thousands of Huguenots in Paris, who had been burning stores > and provoking the police, ................................ If one were Catholic then I am sure you would have the above opinion ? > I deleted, "rightfully" and considered editing the rest, but did not do > so - What do you all think about that ? If one were Huguenot then I am sure you have the above opinion ? This is one of my little "pets" when it comes to historical accuracy merging with religious opinion. Lost huh ? Ok well, if you give it just a little thought and ask yourself just who wrote the stories of local happenings which would become termed "Historical" ? Let's start at the 10th century because I am sure most will know that before that, being able to read and write was very much a religious experience. So, from the 10th century to say umm Luther and his friends, enemies whatever.. by this time many people had gained the ability to read and write AND they were not firmly attached to the Catholic Church. Reason to begin a revolution almost isn't it now ? Don't believe in your Pope and I am going to spread the word. Email was yet to be invented, and so the best way was to write down your thought or protestations of the dominating church. And so the rest is history, well not "History" but history. Anyway...... Up until the idea of protesting by writing, almost all writing was carried out by Catholics in Europe. Let's not forget that the Chinese, Japanese and Egyptians, Greeks, Italians and even Mayans and Aztecs, had been into the writing game for a lot longer. So you have early history according to the Monks, like Gregory and Dodo et al. And to top it off much of pre-Huguenot history was written years, decades and even centuries after the event actually happened and so like any good yarn over time, well distortion appeared, depending on who you backed at the time of writing it all down. Now we all know a whole bunch about our Huguenot ancestors because by golly, someone wrote it down. Let's take Cauvin / Calvin. Many of us think that he was a great fellow and in some things he certainly was. But only "certainly was" from our Huguenot ancestry point of view. If you were anything but Huguenot, then this ratbag student demonstrator was nuts and should have been put away. Ever wondered who worte the things about Calvin ? If I was writing an autobiography I surely am not about to tell you bad things about me now..human nature, isn't it ? So, if it is signed J.C. no no not THAT J.C. the latter one, Jean Calvin, then all you will hear is good works and how he was a man of good standing and only he and his followers knew the way. If you kind of agreed with him or Luther or Zwingli then all of you would collaborate and only write good things about Huguenots or Walloons and absolutely give the Catholics a bad time. On the religious side, well yes, if you are a Calvinist or Lutheran and their derivitives then the words give you comfort and joy in your heart. If you are devout as many are, then anything at all written against Calvin and his bretheren then you a) will not have a bar of it and b) will be only too ready to tell someone that you wont have a bar of it. But ! On the historical side, well now. How do we know that "history" has been recorded with an unbiased opinion ? Yes, I find Wikipedia to be a wonderful project. The beauty of it is that it allows anyone, almost, to record their version of history and then allows others to come along and edit for accuracy. Trouble is, there is no way of leaving ones bias at the door before editing. Just my thoughts and hope it has fellow listers and listerettes pondering prior to rushing to the keyboard on this topic. Kind Regards, Peter Leroy