Dr Sophie Nicholls

I am an Early Modern historian specialising in the history of ideas in the French Wars of Religion. I read Ancient and Modern History as an undergraduate at Oxford, which has influenced the direction of my research and informed my interest in the reception of classical ideas in the Early Modern era. I did my MPhil and PhD in Cambridge, specialising in political thought and intellectual history, after which I returned to Oxford as a JRF and, subsequently, college lecturer.

My first monograph, Political Thought in the French Wars of Religion (CUP 2021), explores the relationship between the church and the French kingdom in treatises produced in response to the religious and civil crisis of the French wars (1562-1629). It looks particularly at the French Catholic League, and the ways in which members of the League legitimised their resistance to the French monarchy, and the role they played in the assassinations of Henri III and Henri IV.  The impact of these ideas on developing conceptions of sovereignty, church-state relations and political science are a particular focus of the monograph. 

My recent work focuses on broad themes and questions in French political thought in the Early Modern period, specifically the development of theories of individual, subjective rights; juridical concepts of power; ideas of voluntary slavery and anti-democracy. 

My current research project is on Étienne de La Boétie (1530-1563), a lawyer and influential Renaissance writer. I am editing two works by him for Cambridge University Press, one on debates around religious toleration in France, and the other on the idea of ‘Voluntary Servitude'. This project forms the basis of my next book, which will be an intellectual history of La Boétie.

I currently teach the following undergraduate papers:

• Theories of the State
• Conquest and Colonisation
• Historiography
• Early Modern Europe (1400-1700)
• Early Modern Britain (1500-1700)
• Scholastic and Humanist political thought
• Disciplines of History

You can view a list of my publications on my Faculty page (link below).