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...