Protestant Conspiracy, Violence, and Iconoclasm on the Feast of Saint Michael, 1567

In the last week of September 1567, Huguenots rose to arms across France, seizing several key cities across the kingdom. My thesis studies the motivations behind these uprisings, looking at the variance in agendas between people of different regions and social backgrounds. When studying the uprising, previous scholars tend to focus on court intrigue and the high aristocracy, which gives the impression that the Huguenots acted as a politically cohesive unit. However, studying Auxerre, Soissons, and Nîmes, three cities seized by the Protestants in 1567, my research reveals that the conspirators acted as a loose coalition of people who shared a common religion and overlapping political goals, but often differed in their priorities and methodology for carrying out the conspiracy. My project sheds light on larger historiographical discussions about Protestant violence during the French Wars of Religion, showing the complex religious, political, and social conditions that led to unrest.