This collection of essays aims to measure the minimum scope for interpretation, with reference to texts produced under absolute constraints: those governing the trials of the Spanish Inquisition, as well as trials for witchcraft and libertinage, in polemical writings during the French wars of religion, or in the words of common law convicts in Italy and England. Written by ten specialists in Early Modern literature and edited by Anne Duprat, these studies examine the violence inflicted on certain texts via the act of interpretation, and the means of resistance used in response. The...