Edict of Potsdam

The Edict of Potsdam was a proclamation issued by Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, in Potsdam on 29 October 1685, as a response to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by the Edict of Fontainebleau. It encouraged Protestants to relocate to Brandenburg. Background On 22 October 1685, King Louis XIV of France issued the Edict of Fontainebleau, which was part of a program of persecution that closed Huguenot churches and schools. This policy escalated the harassment of religious minorities since the dragonnades were created in 1681 in order to intimidate Huguenots into converting to Catholicism. As a result, a large number of Protestants — estimates range from 210,000 to 900,000 — left France over the next two decades. Across the Rhine it has been estimated that the Holy Roman empire had lost a third of its population through slaughter, famine and plague during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). The western part of Brandenburg-Prussia fell within the empire: badly depopulated, the territory faced a desperate labour shortage during the second half of the seventeenth century. The edict