514 HISTORY OF 



bruised and beaten by this pugnacious spirit, all of which added to horribfe 

 sounds and unearthly noises in the immediate vicinity of its walks, so 

 alarmed the inhabitants as to induce them to keep closely housed, whenever 

 the hour for its appearance drew near. Hence, Hugo and ghost came to be 

 synonymous; and as has been already shown, the social worship of night- 

 meetings of the Reformers being so widely different from the imjiosing cere- 

 mony of the Romish church, and requiring them consequently to be out 

 more after nisht than the latter, each individual of the former was called a 

 IIuiio, the whole Huguenots. Thus much for tliis derivation, and the tale 

 that thereby hangs. 



'J'lie next supposed derivation, is that it was a term voluntarily assumed 

 by themselves as a party name, when their religion was attacked and they 

 were forced to take arms against the government in self-defence. As they 

 Avere rigid Calviriists, of great sanctity of character and purity of morals^ 

 Casoneuvp has pretended to have discovered the original in the Flemish 

 word Fleghenon or Huguenon, which means Cathari or Puritan ; but this 

 is not very yirobable, inasmuch as it is not likely, that having a word in their 

 own vcciihulary, su expressive as "Puritan." they would be disposed to bor- 

 row from a lanauage no more known than the Flemi.^h. 



Anotlier author has attempted to trace its origin to Hufrncnotc, a name 

 given to ar. iron or earthen pot for cooking, by connecting it with the j^ersecu^ 

 lions to which the Reformed were subjected in France; and basing it upon 

 the hypotiiesis, that some of their number may have been roasted or tortured' 

 and exposed to the flames like a vessel used for culinarv' purposes. 



These are all, however, but mere surmises, unsupported and unsustained 

 by any thincr at all calculated to give them, a prof>er title to serious coi.sider-^ 

 cration. The only etymology then, which in our humble opinion remains, 

 is undoubtedly the true one — this we shall briefly attempt to prove by the 

 history of the times and the people. 



Eids'-noss is a German compounded word, in the Saxon and Dutch dial- 

 ects Eedneudtieu ; of which the singular is Ei(J<^eTioss, or Eedgtnol.* It is 

 firmed from Eid an oath, and Genoss a confederate or partaken of the oath; 

 and was the original designation of the three Swiss patriots William '/'ell, 

 V.'alter Fuerst and Arnold of Me'cthahj on the night of the 7th Nov. 1307, 

 met at Rurtli on the lake of lAJzcrne and there hound themselves by a solemn 

 oath, to shake off the yoke of their Austrian oppressors, and to re-establish 

 the libf^rties of their country. The conspiracy thus formed was embraced 

 with delicrht by all to whom it was communicated, each member of which 

 was called an Eid::e).o98 and afterwards, January 7, A. D. 13U8, when the 

 people of the Vv'aidstetter, compered of the Cantons Appenzell, Glaris and 

 IJri, met in solemn council and took the oath of perpetual alliance, they were 

 designated as the Eihenuosst^tiachaft, i- e. Confederation. Through suc- 

 cessive generations they were thus known, and \\iien in aftertimes, the peo- 

 ple of fieneva which had now been included in the Swiss confederation, em- 

 braced the doctrines of John Calvin; they threw off the allegiance of the 

 Duke of Savoy ; and in order to maintain their independence, formed a con- 

 federacy after the example of the Waldstetter with tlie ('antons of Bern and 

 Freiboure, whi h was also confirmed by an oath of all the contracting par- 

 ties. Like the original patriots, they in turn were called Eidcencssm. This 

 movement being half temporal and half ecclesiastical or spiritual, related to 



♦Lewis Mayer. D, D. See liis letter, Oct. 11. 1843. 

 f Davenport, article Fuerst. 



