Local Politics In The French Wars Of Religion

Drawing on the municipal archives of eleven French provincial towns as well as other related sources, this book explores the links between local and national politics during the Wars of Religion of the later sixteenth century. It argues that the response of the French towns to the challenge of heresy, and later the Catholic League, was conditioned by local circumstances. Whilst previous work has been published on the urban dimensions to the Wars of Religion, few studies provide a study of an entire province, allowing as this book does, the opportunity to explicitly compare several towns. After a detailed topographical introduction, placing in context the towns of the region and describing their differing urban constitutions, the following chapters deal with the crisis points of the Wars of Religion. This book sits squarely in the forefront of one of the dominant themes in the historiography of early modern France: the importance of the local community and local elites in political structures and political life. As such, it will prove fruitful reading for all scholars with an interest in early modern French urban and political culture.

This book chronicles a pre-existing independence and the pursuit, throughout the religious wars, of practical local politics at the expense of religious passions.

Based on fresh analysis of the political and polemical literature produced by members of the Holy League during the French wars of religion, this study scrutinises their political thought and rethinks their positioning in the wider intellectual context of the religious wars.

Through a wide-ranging and close analysis of archival sources, this book re-evaluates both the role of royal authority and of local agency in the French religious wars in the lead up to the Edict of Nantes of 1598. Drawing on extensive research, it provides a new perspective on the political, religious, social and cultural history of the conflict.

Germany and the French Wars of Religion, 1560-1572 explores how the first decade of the religious wars in France was interpreted by German Protestants and why they felt compelled to intervene.