City on the Ocean Sea: La Rochelle, 1530-1650

This important volume presents the first comprehensive history of early modern La Rochelle, a port town whose fractious residents became embroiled in the French Reformations.
Opening chapters situate the Rochelais within the geopolitics of an oceanic frontier, where urbanites created a strong, heavily armed civic government, in part because they perceived themselves as isolated civilizing agents surrounded by the savage inhabitants of a lawless environment.
Analysis of the city's Reformation proceeds within this context of place and politics, showing how various ranks of the citizenry idiosyncratically adopted the tenets of Calvinism, amalgamating these salvific doctrines with traditional civic rites and values - to the consternation of more orthodox pastors.
Juxtaposing serial sources from multiple archives, Robbins shows with innovative detail how local political and religious struggles intermeshed, setting the city and its Reformed congregations on a fatal collision course with the Bourbon monarchy. Concluding chapters examine how great aristocratic families, churchmen, and Catholic magistrates joined in a local Counter-Reformation, remaking urban power politics from the ground up.

Kevin C. Robbins, Ph.D. (1991) in History, Johns Hopkins University, is currently an Assistant Professor of history at Indiana University, Indianapolis. He has published widely on the sociopolitical and sociocultural histories of French west country towns.

'...this is a fine study of civic Calvinism in a major, critical town. It offers many valuable insights [...] and goes well beyond traditional political and religious considerations, emphasizing instead community and family, the processes of change, and the growing encroachment of outside influences.'
Raymond A. Mentzer, Sixteenth Century Journal, 1999.
In his newly published study "Urban Politics in Early Modern Europe," (Routledge, 2000), p. 81, Professor Christopher Friedrichs states:
"The most outstanding recent treatment in English of a single French town in this era is Kevin C. Robbins, City on the Ocean Sea: La Rochelle 1530-1650. Urban Society, Religion, and Politics on the French Atlantic Frontier."
'...a major work of urban historical scholarship.'
Evan Jones, Urban History Newsletter, 2000.
'...gripping reading.'
Evan Jones, International Journal of Maritime History
'Kevin Robbins offers a major reassessment of the social taxonomy, political dynamics and religious affiliations…The result is a work that is full of impressive research matched by challenging syntheses..this groundbreaking book provides an excellent basis for future research and comparative analysis.'
M. Greengrass, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2000.