Iron and Blood: Civil Wars in Sixteenth-Century France

Nora D.S. Robins is Collections Co-ordinator (Internal) of the
University of Calgary Libraries.

It was the eminent historian Fernand Braudel who first described the
sixteenth as the “beautiful century.” It certainly was when compared
to the crises of the late Middle Ages, which preceded it, and the
depressions of the seventeenth century, which followed it. For France,
it was a period that saw the development of a strong monarchy, the
growth of the middle class, and the strengthening of the nobility. It
was also a period of increasing population, stagnant productivity, and
rising rents. Commoners did not view it as a beautiful century. They
were the ones who bore the brunt of increased royal taxation, noble
pretensions, and bourgeois ambition. The result was popular unrest that
culminated in the three great popular movements of the civil wars: the
Calvinist Revolt of the 1560s, the Catholic League’s challenge to the
power of the monarchy, and the revolts of the 1590s.

Heller’s study of the complex society of sixteenth-century France
seeks to connect the rising level of social conflict in the first part
of the century to the religious and political chaos of the civil wars in
the latter part of the century. His purpose is to link the research that
has been done on late medieval revolts with that on early modern popular
revolts through a study of those of the sixteenth century.

The book includes a glossary, notes, and a 15-page bibliography of
primary and secondary sources.

Heller is a professor of history at the University of Manitoba. He is
the author of The Conquest of Poverty: The Calvinist Revolt in Sixteenth
Century France.