Crown and Nobility in Early Modern France

This book analyses the evolving relationship between the French monarchy and the French nobility in the early modern period. New interpretations of the absolutist state in France have challenged the orthodox vision of the interaction between the crown and elite society. By focusing on the struggle of central government to control the periphery, Bohanan links the literature on collaboration, patronage and taxation with research on the social origins and structure of provincial nobilities. Three provinical examples, Provence, Dauphine and Brittany, illustrate the ways in which elites organised and mobilised by vertical ties (ties of dependency based on patronage) were co-opted or subverted by the crown.The monarchy''s success in raising more money from these depended on its ability to juggle a set of different strategies, each conceived according to the particularity of the social, political and institutional context of the province. Bohanan shows that the strategies and expedients employed by the crown varied from province to province; conceived on an individual basis, they bear the signs of ad hoc responses rather than a gradnoise plan to centralise.>

List of contents

Introduction
Nobility: Metamorphosis
Crown: Statebuilding
Provence: The Opportunities of Factionalism
Dauphiné: The Potential in Class Conflict
Brittany: The Limits of Elite Solidarity
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

About the author

DONNA BOHANAN is Associate Professor of History at Auburn University, Alabama, USA.

Product details

• Authors: Donna Bohanan
• Publisher: Macmillan
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.07.2001
• EAN: 9780333609729
• ISBN: 978-0-333-60972-9
• No. of pages: 194
• Series: European History in Perspective; EUROPEAN HISTORY IN PERSPECTIV; European History in Perspective; EUROPEAN HISTORY IN PERSPECTIV
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; B, Palgrave History Collection, France—History, History of France, conflict;early modern period;France;government;monarchy