Week 1 France in 1560

 

Seminar 1: We'll have a general discussion about sixteenth-century France on the basis of the following reading

Contexts:

David Potter, A History of France, 1460-1560: The Emergence of a Nation State (1995)

Mack P. Holt (ed.), Renaissance and Reformation France, 1500-1648 (2002)

The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629 (1995; 2^nd edn 2005), chap. 1

Robert J. Knecht, The French Civil Wars, 1562-1598 (2000), chaps. 1-3

The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France, 1483-1610 (1996), esp. chaps. 1 & 17

J.H.M. Salmon, Society in Crisis: France in the Sixteenth Century (1975), part I

Henry Heller, Iron and Blood: Civil Wars in Sixteenth-Century France (1991), chap. 1

F.J. Baumgartner, France in the Sixteenth Century (1995), parts I & II

Janine Garrisson, A History of Sixteenth-Century France, 1483-1598: Renaissance, Reformation and Rebellion (1995), parts I & II

Arlette Jouanna et al, Histoire et dictionnaire des guerres de religion (1998)

 

On Monarchy:

David Potter, A History of France, 1460-1560: The Emergence of a Nation State (1995), esp. chaps. 1-3

Mack P. Holt (ed.), Renaissance and Reformation France, 1500-1648 (2002), chap. 1

J.R. Major, From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings, Nobles and Estates (1994), chaps. 1-3

E. Le Roy Ladurie, The French Royal State, 1460-1610 (1993)

R.J. Knecht, The French Wars of Religion, 1559-1598 (2nd edn, 1996), chap. 2

David Parker, The Making of French Absolutism (1983), chap. 1

Richard A. Jackson, Vive le Roi! A History of the French Coronation from Charles V to Charles X (1984)

Ralph E. Giesey, The Royal Funeral Ceremony in Renaissance France (1960)

Penny Roberts, 'The Kingdom's Two Bodies? Corporeal Rhetoric and Royal Authority during the Religious Wars', French History, 21 (2007), 147-64

Claude de Seyssel, The Monarchy of France (1515; modern edn, 1981)

Jean Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth/Six livres de la République (1576; various modern edns)

Colette Beaune, Naissance de la nation France(1985)

 

Seminar 2: Historiography: Heller, Holt, Knecht (and Crouzet).

You should all read:

Mack P. Holt, 'Putting Religion Back into the Wars of Religion', French Historical Studies, 18 (1993), pp. 524-51 (a review article)

[see also H. Heller, ‘A Reply to Mack P. Holt’, French Historical Studies, 19 (1996), 853-61] both available on JStor

Nicolette Mout, ‘Reformation, Revolt and Civil Wars: The Historiographic Traditions of France and the Netherlands’, in P. Benedict et al (eds), Reformation, Revolt and Civil War in France and the Netherlands, 1555-1585 (1999), pp. 23-34

Mark Greengrass, 'The Psychology of Religious Violence', French History, 5 (1991), 467-74, review of Denis Crouzet, Les Guerriers de Dieu: La violence au temps des troubles de religion (vers 1525-vers 1610) (2 vols., 1990)

 

Volunteers will then summarise the main arguments of the following books on the wars:

Henry Heller, Iron and Blood: Civil Wars in Sixteenth-Century France (1991)

Mack P. Holt, The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629 (1995; 2^nd edn 2005)

[Also useful is R.J. Knecht, The French Civil Wars, 1562-1598 (2000)]

Documents: Potter: Chap. 1