After the Wars of Religion: Protestant-Catholic accommodation in the French town of Loudun, 1598--1665

This thesis is a local study that examines the potential for accommodation between Protestants and Catholics after the French Wars of Religion. The town chosen is Loudun and the period of coverage is 1598 to 1665. What did living in the precarious climate established by the Edict of Nantes mean for a locality like Loudun? Could the Protestants and Catholics here develop working arrangements and a tradition of accommodation, even though the memory of conflict remained vivid? Could accommodation entail the adoption of the characteristics and beliefs of the opposite religion, or did both sides remain perfectly watertight and grounded in their religious convictions?;We have sought to reconstruct the attributes of each of the two confessional communities. Specifically, this thesis assesses the shifting demographic and political balance between them and charts the unfolding response of both the Protestant and Catholic communities to those changes. It reviews the potential for conflict and compromise in matters pertaining to officeholding, economic matters, urban geography, legal customs, and family life, and aims to determine where and how the two communities were able to establish working arrangements with each other.;Over the course of this period, the balance between the two communities did change, largely in favour of the Catholic populace. Yet, the Protestant accent on survival helped this community maintain its hold in the town. In an age when religious toleration was based on expediency, it is this kind of balance operating in Loudun that created the necessary conditions for confessional accommodation. Also, members of both communities held a firm understanding of their particular creed and had little inclination to adopt components from the opposite faith. That theme of necessity and difference determined to a considerable degree the kind of relations that could take place. Interconfessional godparentage and mixed marriages were rare in Loudun, but we find stronger evidence of interaction in areas more germane to the commercial and non-religious sphere.