Pierre de L'Estoile and his World in the Wars of Religion

Tom Hamilton's book is a beautifully crafted study of the life and times of one of the most well-known and oft-quoted authors of the period, the royal office-holder and diarist Pierre de L'Estoile... Hamilton is an excellent story-teller and makes effective use of vignettes to draw the reader into the physical and professional world of L'Estoile and his fellow royal office-holders... Hamilton provides careful analysis of L'Estoile's manuscripts and the sources that informed them, including printed images and broadsheets, as well as the contents of his library... This is a remarkable book, fluently written and nicely illustrated. * Penny Roberts, University of Warwick, Journal of Ecclesiastical History *
The reader will find many interesting and important sources on the Wars of Religion collected in one place, with new and important insights. This clearly opens new possibilities for studies of the period and in the study of early modern autobiographical writing. * Michaël Green, Renaissance Quarterly *
Hamilton's great contribution in this work is to take L'Estoile "out of the footnotes" of other works and make him the central focus of study ... Hamilton situates L'Estoile among many other essayists, diarists, and collectors of the early modern period -- including his contemporary Michel de Montaigne -- who saw their activities as engaging with and reflecting on the times in which they lived. This well-written account, which is accessible to the nonspecialist, is a welcome and important addition to the field, and one that will shape the use of L'Estoile as a source by future historians. * Eric Nelson, American Historical Review *
Hamilton blends elements of biography and microhistory into a critical analysis of how L'Estoile acquired, engaged, and selected the materials that shaped his works. The result is a more critical understanding of L'Estoile's role in fashioning our understanding of the religious wars. It also provides a fascinating portrait of his private life, his social world, his role as a collector of curiosities, and his own personal experiences of living through the era of the French religious wars. * Edward Tenace, H-War *
This well-written and engaging monograph provides a meticulous analysis of L'Estoile's record keeping practices and his world. * Nina Lamal, The Sixteenth Century Journal *
Hamilton's work demonstrates the process through which L'Estoile's memory helped to determine our own interpretation of the period, an important observation for anyone interested in the Wars of Religion in particular or the construction of historical memory in general. * Hilary Bernstein, H-France *
Thoroughly researched, tautly argued and well supported with telling examples, this is an important book ... a model study of how memory is constructed through the creation and manipulation of texts. * Barbara B. Diefendorf, History *
a fascinating and accomplished monograph ... Tom Hamilton transcends the apparent constraints of the subject by an approach that is original and striking ... [it] will change the way that historians of this period approach his important source-text. * Mark Greengrass, French Studies *
Tom Hamilton has managed to sketch a vivid portrayal of someone who has served as a prism for generations of scholars through which to view everyday events in 16th-century Paris during the turmoil of wars, with his sharp, distanced and trenchant characterizations ... All in all, Tom Hamilton presents a densely researched, sensible and carefully written intellectual and socio-political biography of one of the most central, individual, and interesting testimonies of the period of radicalization during the French Wars of Religion. * Cornel Zwierlein, Francia-Recensio *