This work considers how Frenchwomen participated in Christian religious practice during the sixteenth century, with their words and their actions. Using extensive original and archival sources, it provides a comprehensive study of how women contributed to institutional, theological, devotional and political religious matters. Challenging the view of religious reforms and ideas imposed by male authorities upon women, this study argues instead that women, Catholic and Calvinist, lay and monastic, were deeply involved in the culture, meanings and development of contemporary religious practices.

This collection asks new questions about the household, examining the kinds of positive and negative emotional scope available to household members drawn together by shared economic, social and biological needs rather than by blood ties. Through a range of case studies across Western Europe, the collection considers varied methodological approaches and sources to explore emotional realms between household members, and grapples with the challenges of historicizing both the household and emotions.

This collection asks new questions about the household, examining the kinds of positive and negative emotional scope available to household members drawn together by shared economic, social and biological needs rather than by blood ties.

This work considers how Frenchwomen participated in Christian religious practice during the sixteenth century, with their words and their actions. Using extensive original and archival sources, it provides a comprehensive study of how women contributed to institutional, theological, devotional and political religious matters. Challenging the view of religious reforms and ideas imposed by male authorities upon women, this study argues instead that women, Catholic and Calvinist, lay and monastic, were deeply involved in the culture, meanings and development of contemporary religious practices.