Instructor | History 318 Home Page | Schedule of Weekly Readings and Questions

Holt, The French Wars of Religion, 76-97; Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 152-87.

Identify: Gastines cross, Simon Vigor, Peace of La Rochelle, rites of violence, pollution.

1. What evidence does Holt provide that for French Catholics "the sacral monarchy was the very foundation of the social and political order" (79)? Was this also the case for French Calvinists? Why or why not?

2. What was the mood of Protestants and Catholics on the eve of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre?

3. The massacres in Paris:

  • What were the three principal events or phases?
  • What are the main issues of debate among historians? What are the views of N. M. Sutherland, of Janine Estèbe? Are they convincing?

    4. The massacre in the provinces:

  • Where did they take place?
  • What did the cities in which the massacres occured have in common?
  • What started the massacres?
  • Who was responsible for the massacres?
  • Did the provincial massacres have anything in common with the massacre in Paris?

    5. What impact did the massacres in Paris and in the provinces have on the Wars of Religion generally and on the Protestant movement in particular?

    6. Religious riots
    How does Davis understand riots?
    What are the main characteristics of riots that she identifies?
    Why did people think they were justified in rioting?
    What occasioned rioting?
    What distinguished Protestants and Catholics in religious riots?
    Who participated in riots?

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