French Huguenots made enormous contributions to the life and culture of
colonial New York during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Huguenot craftsmen were the city's most successful artisans, turning out
unrivaled works of furniture which were distinguished by unique designs
and arcane details. More than just decorative flourishes, however, the
visual language employed by Huguenot artisans reflected a distinct
belief system shaped during the religious wars of sixteenth-century
France.
In Fortress of the Soul, historian Neil Kamil traces the Huguenots'
journey to New York from the Aunis-Saintonge region of southwestern
France. There, in the sixteenth century, artisans had created a
subterranean culture of clandestine workshops and meeting places
inspired by the teachings of Bernard Palissy, a potter, alchemist, and
philosopher who rejected the communal, militaristic ideology of the
Huguenot majority which was centered in the walled city of La Rochelle.
Palissy and his followers instead embraced a more fluid, portable, and
discrete religious identity that encouraged members to practice their
beliefs in secret while living safely--even prospering--as artisans in
hostile communities. And when these artisans first fled France for
England and Holland, then left Europe for America, they carried with
them both their skills and their doctrine of artisanal security.
Drawing on significant archival research and fresh interpretations of
Huguenot material culture, Kamil offers an exhaustive and sophisticated
study of the complex worldview of the Huguenot community. From the
function of sacred violence and alchemy in the visual language of
Huguenot artisans, to the impact among Protestants everywhere of the
destruction of La Rochelle in 1628, to the ways in which New York's
Huguenots interacted with each other and with other communities of
religious dissenters and refugees, Fortress of the Soul brilliantly
places American colonial history and material life firmly within the
larger context of the early modern Atlantic world.
