This book aims - through translations of key documents concerning communal religious violence, political confrontation and war - to provide the means to study the French Wars of Religion through the most important contemporary sources.
Documents include:
-Key legislative acts of the period from the edicts concerning religion and toleration in 1560-62 to the 1590s
- Sources on types of religious violence during the early years of the wars
- A detailed examination of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew
- And the breakdown of royal authority in the 1580s and its restoration by Henry IV.
Each section is accompanied by a commentary which guides the reader through the documents translated.