Transitional Justice in Early Modern France

How can societies achieve a lasting peace in the wake of civil war? The United Nations advocate transitional justice, which aims to address wartime grievances and promote reconciliation by means of prosecution, truth and reconciliation committees, reparations, and memorials. This five-year project (funded by the Dutch Research Council) is the first to apply the concept of transitional justice to the early modern era. Our team investigates the transitional justice mechanisms created in the aftermath of the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598). The Edict of Nantes famously ended the civil wars by allowing religious coexistence between Catholics and Protestants but also created mechanisms to promote peace, including bipartisan courts and peace commissioners. Yet by 1685 King Louis XIV revoked the edict and forced his Protestant subjects to convert. To explain this ultimate breakdown of peace, the project postulates that we must study the long-term viability of transitional justice, particularly the commitment of subsequent generations to uphold instituted mechanisms. 

Anonymous, King Henry as the restorer of peace, ca. 1590. © RMN-Grand Palais (Château de Pau). Photo: René-Gabriel Ojeda