ABSTRACT
The second half of the sixteenth century saw three major difficulties for the counts de Laval. Firstly, their failure to produce enough male heirs saw the house suffer two changes of lineage and two long minorities – a failure that contrasted starkly with their demographic success in the fifteenth century. Secondly, they faced financial and economic problems. These were in part a result of their lifestyle and of the destructions of war but they were compounded by demographic collapse and political choices. For, and perhaps more importantly, the leading members of the family chose to abandon their traditional faith and turn to Calvinism. The adoption of Protestantism by the Lavals had a profound influence on their lives and fortunes in the last decades of the sixteenth century. All of these elements together combined to create a sustained challenge that threatened their political, economic and social status. This new situation deeply affected the affinity of the counts, changing its organisation, recruitment and presenting clients too with difficult and troubling choices. The furious pace of events in France at this time was a catalyst for these changes since the long series of civil conflicts tested and transformed many preexisting bonds; the trials faced by the Laval affinity had echoes in many other parts of France.
