Legacies of Violence?

This article traces continuities and changes in Parisian Catholic militancy after the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre (Aug. 24, 1572). It evaluates the rites of violence later reactivated by some of the killers, alongside a radicalized faction of their colleagues in the civic militia, who belonged to a younger generation and played a significant role in the later religious wars. Pursuing a forensic examination of the surviving manuscript sources, it provides a new perspective on the killers on Saint Bartholomew's Day by showing how these men were shaped by, and in turn reshaped, the transformation of Parisian society in the sixteenth century.