Sieges of fortified cities provided the sites of some of the most brutal violence of the religious wars of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.  Bastioned fortifications and artillery allowed many urban centers to resist powerful armies for lengthy periods of time.  The slow advance of besieging armies’ trenches and the dramatic nature of early modern siege warfare created an alluring spectacle not only for soldiers, engineers, and nobles participating in sieges, but also for artists, writers, and curious onlookers who flocked to witness siege operations.  This paper will explore siege narratives, siege views, pamphlets, and correspondence dealing with sieges in the French Wars of Religion, Italian Wars, and the Dutch Revolt.  This evidence will address questions raised by recent historical and art historical literature by Martha Pollak, Michael Wolfe, Kate Van Orden, as well as comparative analyses of gender and violence in recent special issue of Gender and History journal.  I hope to demonstrate some of the ways in which female and male observers viewed and experienced sieges during the religious wars.  While organized violence has often been portrayed as an almost exclusively  masculine activity, early modern sources reveal feminine perspectives on warfare and gendered ways of beholding violence during the wars of religion.