Staff profile

I work on the social and cultural history of early modern Europe, with a particular focus on France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Above all my research explores the lived experience and diverse legacies of the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598).

My first book, Pierre de L’Estoile and his World in the Wars of Religion, showed how this major diarist’s decisions about preserving or destroying records shaped the way historians have interpreted the period ever since. Published by Oxford University Press in the Past & Present book series, it was shortlisted for the R. Gapper Book Prize of the Society for French Studies.

My second book, A Widow's Vengeance after the Wars of Religion: Gender and Justice in Renaissance France, demonstrates how plaintiffs like the powerful widow Renée Chevalier revitalized the practice of justice after the troubles, and reshaped the laws of war in the process. This book is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. An earlier article on this subject was awarded the Nancy Lyman Roelker Prize by the Sixteenth Century Society.

Much of my research relies on criminal archives, which give access to people who are otherwise difficult to study in a period when few could sign their name, let alone write at greater length. As a result I have developed wider interests in the role of criminal justice in the legal culture of the Old Regime. My recent and forthcoming publications on this subject have focused on hearsay and oral evidence, magic and witchcraft, public execution rituals, political crime and sedition, the sexual crimes labelled as ‘sodomy’, and visual depictions of criminal law.

I am happy to supervise graduate students working on topics in early modern French history, and in early modern social and cultural history more generally. 

Before I moved to Durham in 2018, I studied as an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge and as a graduate student at the University of Oxford. After completing my doctorate, I held a lectureship at Oxford followed by a research fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge. I have also been a visiting research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt am Main, and a visiting professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. 

Authored book

• Hamilton, T. (in press). A Widow's Vengeance after the Wars of Religion: Gender and Justice in Renaissance France. Oxford University Press
• Hamilton, T. (2017). Pierre de L'Estoile and his World in the Wars of Religion. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198800095.001.0001

Chapter in book

• Hamilton, T. (in press). Picturing Criminal Law in Old Regime France: Brunel, Known as Bétancourt, Being Led to the Scaffold (1670). In F. Grant, & L. Jordanova (Eds.), When Words and Images Meet (57–67). London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
• Hamilton, T. (2021). Political Crime in the Wars of Religion: François Brigard's Sedition. In J. O'Brien, & M. Schachter (Eds.), Sedition: The Spread of Controversial Literature and Ideas in France and Scotland, c. 1550–1610 (195-212). Brepols Publishers
• Hamilton, T. (2019). 'Food and War' and 'Food Theft'. In V. Avery, & M. Calaresu (Eds.), Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe, 1500-1800 (54-57). Bloomsbury
• Hamilton, T. (2018). The Impact of Jacques Gillot’s Actes du Concile de Trente (1607) in the Debate Concerning the Council of Trent in France. In W. François, & V. Soen (Eds.), The Council of Trent : reform and controversy in Europe and beyond (1545-1700). Vol. 2: Between bishops and princes (345-365). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. https://doi.org/10.13109/9783666551086.345
• Hamilton, T. (2015). Contesting Public Executions in Paris Towards the End of the Wars of Religion. In S. Cummins, & L. Kounine (Eds.), Cultures of conflict resolution in early Modern Europe (179-202). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315563121-8

Journal Article

• Hamilton, T. (in press). Prosecuting Theft under the Old Regime: France c.1540–c.1690. Continuity and Change, 38(3),
• Hamilton, T. (in press). The Crisis and Recovery of Criminal Justice in Late Sixteenth-Century France. The Sixteenth century journal,
• Hamilton, T. (2023). Un 'cas exécrable' devant le Parlement de Paris à la fin des guerres de Religion (1599-1600). Criminocorpus (Revue), https://doi.org/10.4000/criminocorpus.12196
• Hamilton, T. (2022). The Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre Up Close. French History, 36(4), 467-470. https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/crac055
• Hamilton, T. (2022). The Evidence of Hearsay in Criminal Proceedings from Late Renaissance France. Renaissance Studies, 36(3), 377-394. https://doi.org/10.1111/rest.12761
• Hamilton, T. (2021). A Sodomy Scandal on the Eve of the French Wars of Religion. Historical Journal, 64(4), 844-864. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x20000564
• Hamilton, T. (2020). Adjudicating the Troubles: Violence, Memory, and Criminal Justice at the End of the Wars of Religion. French History, 34(4), 417-434. https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/craa044
• Hamilton, T. (2020). Sodomy and Criminal Justice in the Parlement of Paris, c.1540-c.1700. Journal of the History of Sexuality, 29(3), 303-334. https://doi.org/10.7560/jhs29301
• Hamilton, T., & Hammond, N. (2019). Introduction: Voulez ouyr?. Early Modern French Studies, 41(1), 2-6. https://doi.org/10.1080/20563035.2019.1612556
• Hamilton, T. (2016). Recording the Wars of Religion: The ‘Drolleries of the League’ from Ephemeral Print to Scrapbook History. Past & Present: A Journal of Historical Studies, 230(S11), 288-310. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtw024
• Hamilton, T. (2016). The Procession of the League: Remembering the Wars of Religion in Visual and Literary Satire. French History, 30(1), 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/crv087
• Hamilton, T. (2016). ‘Bigarrures folatres et mesdisantes’: A Curio from Pierre de L’Estoile’s Cabinet?. French Studies Bulletin, 37(139), 43-46. https://doi.org/10.1093/frebul/ktw010