In the spirit of Gabriel Le Bras, whose masterful, pathbreaking work in the historical sociology of religion nearly seventy years ago still merits close reading today, Allan Tulchin presents an intriguing case study of collective conversion and the wellsprings of sectarian violence in his new book on the Reformation in sixteenth-century Nîmes. This ancient city in lower Languedoc became one of the bastions of Calvinism in France and the site of perhaps the most spectacular instance of Protestant violence against Catholics in the 1567 massacre known as the Michelade. Since the late nineteenth century, scholars beginning with Henri Hauser have largely defined the Reformation in France as an urban phenomenon. Tulchin poses many of the same questions which succeeding generations of historians down to contemporaries such as Natalie Zemon Davis, Philip Benedict, and Robert Sauzet have done, concerning the evolving social composition of the movement, its intersection with political controversies and economic conditions, and the complex dynamics underlying factionalism. What sets his study apart is his ability to demonstrate the actual processes at work due to his own conversion of information gleaned from notarial records into a massive database which he then subjects to fine-grained network analysis. The result is a compelling moving picture in real time of an urban community undergoing profound upheaval.

Tulchin's approach consciously marries Annaliste techniques with an appreciation of political and economic factors in an attempt to link ideas to practice; the absence of any sustained consideration of religious factors understood qua religion creates limitations, however, especially on the question of motivation. In part, this disjunction may derive from the book's focus on collective dimensions of the Reformation in Nîmes. An obligatory opening chapter sets the scene with a description of the city's geographical setting and social makeup. Tulchin sees Nîmes as a typical southern French town with a unified social hierarchy under the leadership of lawyers and officials whose training and views, he claims, held a special affinity for Calvinism. He also argues that deteriorating economic conditions facilitated confessional change. The next chapter takes up the early growth of the Protestant community in Nîmes during the latter part of the reign of François I. Rising poverty, the appeal of humanist education, and deepening concerns about the state of public morality proved more and more intractable to municipal officials, while relations with the crown became strained over issues of municipal liberties and skyrocketing taxation. The story of the early Reformation in Nîmes thus essentially marked another stage in the long process of decline of the bonnes villes, so famously studied by Bernard Chevalier, although Tulchin does not explicitly construe it in these terms.

This intersection of politics and religion forms the heart of Tulchin's ensuing argument which traces the growth and crisis of the Protestant community through the 1550s and its eventual consolidation in the 1560s. Despite mounting persecution, the fledging reformed church in Nîmes steadily expanded as measured by changes in notarial formulas found in wills. Its early social profile represented a cross section of Nîmes society, with a preponderance of professionals and highly skilled artisans. The key to the movement's takeoff, however, was the eventual failure of both local municipal government and the monarchy after 1559 to stem declines in living standards and rising violence and factionalism. Rigged elections in 1560 to ensure Catholic control of Nîmes only made matters worse by hobbling the council's legitimacy. Tulchin explores the ensuing crisis in a fascinating chapter devoted to the cahier de doléances drawn up for the 1561 Estates General in Orléans by leading members of the Protestant community and which, in a moment of misplaced conciliation, the Catholic consuls embraced. The list catalogued longstanding grievances over violations of municipal liberties, clerical abuses, high taxes, and economic problems. Much as occurred later in 1789, the cahier catalyzed Protestant opposition which grew rapidly and developed its identity and strengthened its position in key municipal institutions. Violence accompanied this confessional change, principally acts of iconoclasm. Rising insecurities across the realm coupled with the partisan factionalism among the elites of Nîmes then came to a head in 1567 in the Michelade massacre. Tulchin's minute dissection of the massacre gives the lie, he argues, to assertions by historians such as Natalie Zemon Davis and Denis Crouzet that Protestants were less violent than Catholics during the French Wars of Religion. The book closes with an extended discussion of the Reformation in Nîmes in comparative perspective, pointing out in particular the main reasons for the movement's success in the south and not the north as well as the challenges it faced in France's largest urban centers. Oddly, the conclusion almost reads likes an introduction to the study.

Scholars and students are all encouraged to read this important, if somewhat truncated contribution to our understanding of the French Reformation. The book excels in its analysis of the social and political dynamics of urban confessional change, building on its reliance on notarial and consular records. Largely absent, however, is any sustained consideration of the religious motives of selected individuals or the special roles played by women, factors that the fuller historiography of this subject have long told us are also central. The Annaliste dream of histoire totale thus again remains just that.