Staff profile

Research

I work on the social and cultural history of early modern Europe, especially France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the history of crime and criminal justice. 

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 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. An earlier article on this subject was awarded the Nancy Lyman Roelker Prize by the Sixteenth Century Society. My critical edition of the trial records is published with Criminocorpus. I have also published public-facing articles with History Today and History Workshop, and recorded podcasts with New Books Network and Not Just the Tudors.

Much of my research relies on criminal archives, which give access to people who lived at a time when few could sign their name, let alone write at greater length. As a result I have developed wider interests in the place of criminal justice in the legal culture of the Old Regime. My recent publications on this subject have focused on hearsay and oral evidence, public execution rituals, political justice, quantitative approaches, the sexual crimes labelled as ‘sodomy’ from both macro- and microhistorical perspectives, theft prosecutions, and visual depictions of criminal law.

Graduate supervision

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. 

Profile

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 then 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. In Easter Term 2024 I am a fellow at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt as part of the project Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations. Among other external roles, I serve as co-editor of the journal French History and a member of the committee of the Society for the Study of French History.

Authored book

• Hamilton, T. (2024). A Widow's Vengeance after the Wars of Religion: Gender and Justice in Renaissance France. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192870179.001.0001
• 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). Pierre de L'Estoile et la sorcellerie. In N. Oddo, & G. Schrenck (Eds.), Pierre de L’Estoile, homme de cabinet, homme de réseaux. Geneva: Droz
• Hamilton, T. (2024). Picturing Criminal Law in Old Regime France: Brunel, Known as Bétancourt, Being Led to the Scaffold (1670). In F. Grant, & L. Jordanova (Eds.), Where Words and Images Meet (57–67). London: Bloomsbury
• 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). The Crisis and Recovery of Criminal Justice in Late Sixteenth-Century France. The Sixteenth century journal,
• Greengrass, M., & Hamilton, T. (in press). Gaspard de Monconys’ Defence against the Charge of Imposture: Criminal Justice, Social Hierarchy, and Personal Identity in Early Seventeenth-Century France. The Seventeenth Century,
• Hamilton, T. (2024). Prosecuting Theft under the Old Regime: France c.1540–c.1690. Continuity and Change, 38(3), https://doi.org/10.1017/S0268416023000334
• 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
• van der Linden, D., & Hamilton, T. (2020). Introduction: Remembering the French Wars of Religion. French History, 34(4), 411-416. https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/craa045
• 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). ‘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
• 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