This book is about attitudes and behaviour in early modern France, dealing particularly with the conflicts related to social and intellectual change, and with the tensions between the elite and the common people. The topics discussed include witchcraft, popular belief and superstition, confession, the family, Church and State, and popular revolt. Combining penetrating analyses of important topics with detailed focus on individual cases, Communities of Belief offers a lively critique of some current interpretations of seventeenth century France.

Part I, 'Rebels, Deviants and Victims', concentrates on history from below, while Part II, 'Agencies of Control', examines the intellectual and institutional superstructure and its relation to society as a whole. Robin Briggs shows how the communal oral culture of the older Europe was gradually broken up and replaced by a recognizable modern culture.