Adjudicating the Troubles: Violence, Memory, and Criminal Justice at the End of the Wars of Religion

Hamilton, Tom

Abstract

This article gives a new perspective on the themes of violence, memory, and criminal justice at the end of the Wars of Religion by focusing on a particularly well-documented criminal case tried by the Parlement of Paris. Previous studies of the end of the troubles have often focused on the politics and personality of Henri IV or studied memory culture through elite cultural production. This article instead examines how the witnesses who confronted the royalist military capitain Mathurin de La Cange made use of a broad, social memory of the civil wars and shows how their use of the courts formed part of a larger pattern of post-war conflict resolution. This was a time when people in France endured decades of warfare and confessional division, but nevertheless emerged determined to put an end to the violence by committing to resolve their disputes through the law.

Citation

Hamilton, T. (2020). Adjudicating the Troubles: Violence, Memory, and Criminal Justice at the End of the Wars of Religion. French History, 34(4), 417-434. https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/craa044

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 21, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Aug 19, 2020
• Publication Date: Dec 1, 2020
• Deposit Date: Dec 10, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 19, 2022
• Journal: French History
• Print ISSN: 0269-1191
• Electronic ISSN: 1477-4542
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 34
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 417-434
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/craa044
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1312102