The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629This book is an accessible and comprehensive study of the French wars of religion, designed specifically for undergraduate students. Drawing on the latest scholarship of a generation of social historians of the Reformation, the author presents a new analysis which goes beyond the partisan politics of noble factions and socio-economic tensions of early modern society. He argues that this long conflict was fomented by religious tensions among the population at large. While politics and socio-economic tensions were doubtlessly important, this book focuses on the social history of religion. By analysing the conflict as a cultural clash between two communities bent on defining the boundaries between the sacred and the profane in explicitly different ways, the author attempts to explain why the wars lasted for so long and why they ended in the way that they did. |
Contents
Prologue Gallicanism and reform in the sixteenth century | 8 |
The beginning of a tragedy the early wars of religion 15621570 | 50 |
Popular disorder and religious tensions the making of a massacre 15701574 | 76 |
The rhetoric of resistance the unmaking of the body politic 15741584 | 98 |
Godly warriors the crisis of the League 15841593 | 121 |
Henry IV and the Edict of Nantes the remaking of Gallicanism 15931610 | 153 |
Epilogue the last war of religion 16101629 | 173 |
Common terms and phrases
abjuration Alençon Amboise assassination assembly August authority Béarn Blois Bourbon Burgundy Calvin Calvinist Cambridge capital cardinal Catherine de Medici Charles civil wars clearly clergy Coligny coronation council crown defeat deputies Dijon duke of Anjou duke of Guise Early Modern France economic Edict of Nantes estates Estates-General faith forced French Catholics Gallican church Geneva Henry IV Henry of Navarre Henry's heresy heretics historians Holy Huguenot Struggle Huguenots Ibid Jean king's kingdom l'Estoile La Rochelle Languedoc Leaguer livres Louis Lyon magistrates Mayenne Meaux military monarchy Moreover murder nobility nobles Orléans Parlement of Paris peace edict peasants Philip Benedict political politiques popular prince of Condé Protestantism provinces Queen Mother Quoted Reformation reign religious wars result revolt Richelieu Rochelle Rouen royal army royalist seized siege significant Sixteen sixteenth century Spain Spanish St Bartholomew's massacres Struggle for Recognition Sutherland third civil Toulouse troops underscored violence Wars of Religion
Popular passages
Page 228 - Jean Delumeau, Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture, 13th-18th Centuries, trans. Eric Nicholson (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), gives a broader historical account of an 'oppressive feeling of guilt' which Delumeau associates with 'an unprecedented movement towards introspection, and the development of a new moral conscience
Page 2 - The rites of violence' in her Society and culture in early modern France (Duckworth, London, 1975, cited here in the edition by Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1975), pp.