Penitents, militants, scoundrels, and saints: Early modern Catholicism and the French Catholic League

Historians have explained Catholicism in the early modern period with a variety of terms. In recent decades, they have used some of these to describe the religious motivations and actions of the French Catholic League. While each of these labels explains some aspects of the League’s religiosity, none fully encompasses the complexity of League Catholicism. This project analyzes how adequately different terms depict the League. Although four of the most commonly used ones help describe different facets of the League's history, this study argues that "Early Modern Catholicism," a term recently coined by John O'Malley, is necessary to describe completely the League's religiosity.