French Society: 1589-1715

217 Pages·2014·4.142 MB·English

by  Sharon Kettering

FRENCH SOCIETY
1589-1715
A SOCIAL HISTORY OF EUROPE
General Editor: Raymond Pearson
French Society 1589-1715 is the second volume to be published in
a major new Longman series. Wide-ranging both geographically
and chronologically, it will explore the history of the peoples
of Europe in an ambitious programme of analytical surveys,
each examining a nation, state or region in a key phase of its
development. The books will be written by leading experts;
and each, while synthesizing the latest scholarship in the field,
will be invigorated by the findings and preoccupations of the
author’s original research.
The series is designed for a wide audience: the volumes will
be necessary reading for serious students and fellow scholars,
but they are also written to engage and interest the
non-specialist coming to the subject for the first time.
Inaugurated by the late Harry Hearder, the series is under the
General Editorship of Professor Raymond Pearson, Professor
of European History at the University of Ulster at Coleraine.
Many further volumes are in preparation.
FRENCH SOCIETY
1589-1715
Sharon Kettering
First published in 2001 by Pearson Education Limited
Published 2014 by Routledge

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© Taylor & Francis 2001
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this work has been asserted by her in accordance with
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ISBN 978-1-315-84091-8 (eISBN)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
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Typeset by 35 in 10/13pt Bembo
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CONTENTS
GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE ix
PREFACE xi
INTRODUCTION: SOCIAL SOLIDARITIES 1
1 FAMILIES AND HOUSEHOLDS 6
The instability of families 9
Family tension and strife 12
2 WOMEN AND MEN 20
Dependency and manipulation 22
The battle of the sexes 27
Women, work and home 29
3 PLAGUE AND PEASANTS 35
Why was agriculture stagnant? 39
How unchanging was rural life? 42
4 CITIES AND CHANGE 48
Urban growth 50
Causes and effects of urban growth 54
Urban growth and social change 60
5 THE NOBILITY 64
The royal court 67
The court, the king and the nobility 70
The changing role of the nobility 73
6 THE EARLY MODERN STATE 81
The traditional interpretation 84
The revisionist interpretation 85
New political solidarities 91
7 THE CHURCH 96
Catholic reform 98
The impact of Catholic Reform 103
vii
CONTENTS
Religious dissent: the Protestants 106
Religious dissent: the Jansenists 111
8 THE MARGINS OF SOCIETY 116
Freethinkers and rationalists 117
Witches 122
Poverty and crime 127
CONCLUSION: SOLIDARITIES AND SOCIAL CHANGE 135
APPENDIX 1 CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 142
APPENDIX 2 GLOSSARY 145
APPENDIX 3 A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY 148
MAPS 157
NOTES 161
INDEX 199
viii
GENERAL EDITOR’S PREFACE
For far too long ‘social history’ was regularly, even routinely defined dis-
missively and negatively along the lines of ‘history with the high politics,
economics and diplomacy left out’. Over the latter decades of the twentieth
century, however, a virtual revolution in the sub-discipline of‘social history’
has gathered momentum, fuelled not only by historians but specialists from
such established academic disciplines as anthropology, economics, politics
and especially sociology, and enriched by contributors from burgeoning cul-
tural, demographic, media and women’s studies. At the cusp of the twenty-
first century, the prime rationale of the recently launched ‘Social History
of Europe’ series is to reflect the cumulative achievement and reinforce the
ripening respectability of what may be positively yet succinctly defined as
nothing less than the ‘history of society’.
Initiated by the late Professor Harry Hoarder of the University of Wales, the
‘Social History of Europe’ series is conceived as an ambitious and open-ended
collection of wide-ranging general surveys charting the history of the peoples
of the major European nations, states and regions through key phases in their
societal development from the late Middle Ages to the present. The series is
not designed to become necessarily either chronologically or geographically
all-embracing, although certain pre-eminent areas and periods will demand
a systematic sequence of coverage. Typically, a volume covers a period of
about one century, but longer (and occasionally shorter) time-spans are prov-
ing appropriate. A degree of modest chronological overlap between volumes
covering a particular nation, state or region is acceptable where justified by
the historical experiencer
Each volume in the series is written by a commissioned European or Amer-
ican expert and, while synthesizing the latest scholarship in the field, is in-
vigorated by the findings and preoccupations of the author’s original research.
As works of authority and originality, all contributory volumes are of genuine
interest and value to the individual author’s academic peers.
Even so, the contributory volumes are not intended to be scholarly mono-
graphs addressed to the committed social historian but broader synoptic
overviews which serve a non-specialist general readership. All the volumes
are therefore intended to take the ‘textbook dimension’ with due seriousness,
with authors recognizing that the long-term success of the series will depend
on its usefulness to, and popularity with, an international undergraduate and