The Voices of Nimes: Women, Sex, and Marriage in Reformation Languedoc

This study provides a unique insight into the lives of ordinary French women during the 16th and 17th centuries by examining 1,200 cases brought before the moral courts of the Huguenot church in Languedoc. The records reveal the voices of these women, their speech, behavior, and attitudes towards love, faith, marriage, friendship, and sex. Women appeared frequently before the courts because of the regulation of sexuality, and they used the system to their advantage, denouncing abusers, forcing men to honor their promises, and engaging in idiosyncratic spiritual practices. The study challenges the notion that women's power was hidden and devious and suggests that they were far more public and independent than previously recognized.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 400 pages
Publication date: 20 January 2022
Publisher: Oxford University Press

Sixteenth and seventeenth-century women from the middling and lower social classes in France left no letters or diaries in which they expressed their feelings or thoughts. Few records of their testimonies were kept by criminal courts and magistrates, and no ecclesiastical court records from the French Roman Catholic Church survive between 1540 and 1667. We cannot usually hear the voices of ordinary French women, but this study allows us to do so.

Based on the evidence of 1,200 cases brought before the consistories (moral courts) of the Huguenot church in Languedoc between 1561 and 1615, The Voices of Nimes provides a unique insight into the everyday lives of ordinary women. Women appeared frequently before the consistory because one of the primary functions of moral discipline was the regulation of sexuality, and women were believed to be primarily responsible for sexual sin. This means that the registers contain over a thousand testimonies by and about women, most of whom left no other record to posterity. Women also featured prominently before the consistories due to an ironic, unintended consequence of the consistorial system: it empowered women. Women quickly learned how to use the consistory, denouncing those who abused them, deploying it to force men to honour their promises, and starting rumours they knew would be followed up by the elders.

The registers therefore offer unparalleled evidence of women's agency in this intensely patriarchal society, in a range of different contexts, such as their enjoyment of their sexuality, choice of marriage partner, and their ability to navigate the social and legal system. This study sheds new light on the experiences of women in early modern France and challenges our understanding of gender roles and power dynamics in this period.

Weight: 600g
Dimension: 156 x 235 x 28 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780198797678