ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on municipal elections as one of the most important contexts of voting during the French Wars of Religion. Confessional divisions, civic politics, and religious violence intersected in the annual municipal elections in many French communities. Printed treatises, political pamphlets, and diverse manuscript sources reveal the electoral practices of municipal governments during the religious wars. The chapter utilizes these sources to describe the municipal government and electoral processes for municipal elections across France during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It discusses the shifts to municipal elections in Mediterranean France, one of the most confessionally divided regions of the kingdom. The chapter examines municipal elections during the War of the Catholic League and the final phases of the religious wars. It argues that confessional politics and religious conflict increased competition over municipal offices and transformed cultures of voting, especially in southern France.
