Edict of Romorantin

Picture of the young François II wearing a white hat
François II, the boy-king under whom the edict was promulgated

The Edict of Romorantin, was a decree designed to alter the prosecution of heretics, promulgated by the King of France, François II, in May 1560. The decree came in the wake of the Amboise conspiracy in which many Protestant Huguenots had participated. Conscious that the previous policy of persecution embodied in the edicts of Châteaubriant and Compiègne had thus failed, the crown and the chancellor altered their strategy by distinguishing for the first time between heretics and rebels. The edict would transfer the prosecution of heretics who had committed no other offence to the ecclesiastical courts, which lacked the power to give death sentences. The edict would be confirmed in January 1561 then superseded, first by the Edict of July, which maintained its provision concerning ecclesiastical courts, and by the more radical Edict of Saint-Germain.