Prosecuting War Crimes in Late Renaissance France

This paper uses an exceptional case study in order to explore how people went about prosecuting war crimes in late Renaissance France. In 1599, the widow Renée Chevalier led more than fifty villagers in bringing criminal charges against a military captain whose troops had ransacked her château of Chaumot near the cathedral city of Sens in the winter of 1590 and 1591.

Soldiers had raped and assaulted many of the villagers, pillaged their houses, and left fear and destruction in their wake. Yet how could Chevalier win her case before the Parlement of Paris when King Henri IV’s Edict of Nantes brought an end to the civil wars in 1598 and ordered that the recent troubles should ‘remain extinct and dormant as though they had never happened’?

This paper brings to life Chevalier’s case by showing how it contributed to a wider struggle for justice and an end to violence after the civil wars. Along the way it challenges long-held assumptions about the history of the laws of war, which need to be understood not only as the idealistic invention of great legal thinkers, but also as a practical framework that enabled criminal courts to respond to the real problems faced by magistrates, plaintiffs, and witnesses like those from Chaumot at the end of the Wars of Religion.

To attend this meeting, please register in advance.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Register for meeting