Religion and Violence in Early Modern France:
the work of Natalie Zemon Davis
At the end of June, the University was delighted to welcome
back the esteemed American scholar, Professor Natalie
Zemon Davis (awarded an honorary doctorate in 2006). The
occasion was the thirty-fifth anniversary of her influential
article, ‘The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in SixteenthCentury France’ (Past and Present, 1973) which brought
together some of the leading international scholars in the field
and beyond. In addition, on Friday 27 June, the HRC hosted
a workshop at Warwick for history postgraduates and
postdoctoral students from the four organisers’ institutions the universities of Birmingham, Oxford Brookes, St Andrews
and Warwick - providing them with the opportunity to
discuss their work with Professor Davis.
On Saturday 28 June, a one-day conference on the themes and
influence of ‘The Rites of Violence’ was held at the Shakespeare
Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon. After opening remarks from two of the organisers, Dr Graeme Murdock
(Birmingham) and Professor Andrew Pettegree (St Andrews), the day began with a presentation by
Professor Davis (pictured above) on the genesis of and context in which the article was written, at a time of
political and social ferment in Europe and the United States. In the article, Professor Davis presented for
the first time an explanation for the brutal religious violence which characterised the French religious wars
of the sixteenth century (notably in the most well-known incident, the St Bartholomew’s Day massacres of
1572). In the next session, two other American historians of early modern France, Professors Mack Holt
(George Mason) and Philip Benedict (Geneva), discussed the impact of ‘The Rites of Violence’ on their
own work and in the wider anglophone and francophone historiographies. After lunch, Dr Penny Roberts
(Warwick) and Professor Mark Greengrass (Sheffield) gave papers on the themes of the juxtaposition of
‘Peace and Violence’ and ‘Elites and Violence’ respectively, considering the reaction to the violence of the
wars in print and in art, as well as within urban communities across France. In the next session, Professor
Stuart Carroll (York) and Dr Sara Beam (Victoria, Canada) explored further dimensions to the topic,
regarding the roles of class and of torture in the society of the time.
Finally, the day ended with a comparative session in which Dr Naomi McAreavey (University College,
Dublin) discussed her work on the depiction of violence against women in seventeenth-century Ireland, and
Dr Robert Johnson (Bath) provided reflections on the situation in modern day Central Asia, principally
Afghanistan. Professor Davis was then given the chance to respond to the day’s papers and, thereafter, the
discussion was thrown open to the audience. All agreed that it was a highly successful day, both in
honouring the work of a hugely influential scholar in the fields of social, cultural, comparative and gender
history, and reflecting on the developments in scholarship since the publication of the ‘Rites of Violence’.
Subsequently, the editorial board of the leading historical journal Past and Present (in which Professor Davis’
article was originally published) has requested that a volume of papers arising from the conference be
submitted for publication in the journal’s series.
Penny Roberts (History)