This collection of essays, edited by Graeme Murdock, Penny Roberts, and Andrew Spicer, developed from a one-day conference ‘Religion and Violence in Early Modern France: The Work of Natalie Zemon Davis’ which was held in June 2008 at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon. Five of the papers published here were initially delivered on that occasion, but the conference also sought to learn from the differing perspectives of violence outside sixteenth-century France. This concern is also reflected in this collection, which seeks to offer new insights and approaches to the relationship and significance of religion and violence as well as paying tribute to the immense contribution made in this field by the writings of Natalie Zemon Davis.