Accusations of infanticide on the eve of the French Wars of Religion

Infanticide is commonly thought to be a crime committed by women who find themselves burdened with an unwanted child. This understanding derives from work that has concentrated on trials in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Infanticide in the medieval period and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, however, remains less well known. ¹ Although women were put on trial for the crime, as in the later periods, infanticide was not exclusively linked to unwanted pregnancy and poverty. On the eve of the French Wars of Religion (1562-99), for example, infanticide was associated with heresy and accusations were levelled against the Protestant community as a whole. It is interesting to note that, unlike later periods, both men and women were accused of infanticide and that the narratives indicate a collective responsibility. The accusation of ritual murder, including neonaticide - the killing of a new-born child - had been used against heretics and Jews since late antiquity. The long history of this accusation, which was used repeatedly until the early modern period, highlights the horror with which infanticide was regarded in Europe. Concealment and secrecy were prominent elements of these accusations. It is precisely because nobody knew what Protestants were doing during their secret meetings that it was possible for Catholic propagandists to accuse them of infanticide. This element of doubt, together with the fact that infanticide remained a 'hidden' crime which was often difficult to prove, constitutes a distinct element of continuity with later periods.