Page "St. Bartholomew's Day massacre" Paragraph 63

An explanation of this may lie in the analysis of the massacre in terms of social anthropology by the religious historian Bruce Lincoln, who describes how the religious divide, which gave the Huguenots different patterns of dress, eating and pastimes, as well as the obvious differences of religion and ( very often ) class, had become a social schism or cleavage.

The rituals around the royal marriage had only intensified this cleavage, contrary to its intentions, and the " sentiments of estrangement-radical otherness-come to prevail over sentiments of affinity between Catholics and Protestants ".