Enlightened Feudalism

"By situating the local court within a wide range of para-judicial institutions and behaviors, Hayhoe presents a new vision of village society, one in which communal bonds were too weak to enforce behavioral norms. Village communities had substantial authority over their own affairs, but required the frequent and active collaboration of the court to enforce the rules that they put into place."--BOOK JACKET.

First published in 2006. Feudalism is normally associated with eighteenth-century France only in its more bizarre survivals, as in The Marriage of Figaro, when his seigneur claims the rights to spend the first night with the bride. If feudalism menat no more in the eighteenth century than a few quaint customs that could tickle an audence at the Comedie Francaise, why did French writers attack it so furiously? The author suggests that contemporary writers saw remnants of the feudal regime as important less in themselves, than as symbols of an attitude of mind which the 'enlightened' among them would no longer tolerate. Instead of representing the ideas of the eighteenth century through the eyes of a few outstanding writers, Dr Mackrell has tried to reconstitute the intellectual climate of the ancien regime from the works of largely unknown historians, jurists, economists and others. In this way he illuminates the rich texture of eighteenth-century French thought, without which the ideas of Voltaire, Montesquieu and even Rousseau lose much of their meaning. This study breathes life into the fierce controversies that shook the Age of Reason long before the outbreak of Revolution.

Efforts to ascertain the influence of enlightenment thought on state action, especially government reform, in the long eighteenth century have long provoked stimulating scholarly quarrels. Generations of historians have grappled with the elusive intersections of enlightenment and absolutism, of political ideas and government policy. In order to complement, expand and rejuvenate the debate which has so far concentrated largely on Northern, Central and Eastern Europe, this volume brings together historians of Southern Europe (broadly defined) and its ultramarine empires. Each chapter has been explicitly commissioned to engage with a common set of historiographical issues in order to reappraise specific aspects of 'enlightened absolutism' and 'enlightened reform' as paradigms for the study of Southern Europe and its Atlantic empires. In so doing it engages creatively with pressing issues in the current historical literature and suggests new directions for future research. No single historian, working alone, could write a history that did justice to the complex issues involved in studying the connection between enlightenment ideas and policy-making in Spanish America, Brazil, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. For this reason, this well-conceived, balanced volume, drawing on the expertise of a small, carefully-chosen cohort, offers an exciting investigation of this historical debate.

This up-to-date discussion takes as its starting point the challenge to the traditional notion of feudalism in the twenty-five years since the publication of Jean-Pierre Poly and Eric Bournazel's work on the 'mutation feodale' and Susan Reynolds's attack on the very idea of a feudal society in the Middle Ages. While these challenges have presented a new picture of Western Europe in the so-called feudal age, one more focused than the traditional model of feudalism was, no new scholarly consensus has yet emerged. The volume has two objectives. Firstly, it discusses the present state of research, bringing together leading representatives of the various interpretations of feudalism. It examines the character of medieval society, including questions of landholding, government, and the relationship between king and aristocracy. Secondly, it provides a new geographic perspective on the subject by considering countries little discussed from a feudal perspective. In addition to discussing countries that have been prominent in previous studies of feudalism such as England and France, the book also includes contributions on Germany, Spain, Scandinavia, Hungary, and Romania, thus supplying a truly European perspective and a comparative view of social structure in different regions of Europe.

This acclaimed translation of Michel Delon's Dictionnaire Europen des Lumires contains more than 350 signed entries covering the art, economics, science, history, philosophy, and religion of the Enlightenment. Delon's team of more than 200 experts from around the world offers a unique perspective on the period, providing offering not only factual information but also critical opinions that give the reader a deeper level of understanding. An international team of translators, editors, and advisers, under the auspices of the French Ministry of Culture, has brought this collection of scholarship to the English-speaking world for the first time.

This title brings together a sweeping range of expert and innovative contributions to offer engaging and thought-provoking insights into the history and historiography of the French Revolution, particularly its legacies in transnational and global contexts.

British Identities, Heroic Nationalisms, and the Gothic Novel, 1764-1824 considers three interlocking developments of this period: the emergence of the Gothic novel at a time when national upheavals required the construction of a new nationalist identity, the Gothic novel's redefinition of heroes and heroism in that nationalist debate, and changes within class and gender as well as audience and author relations. The scope of this study extends beyond the confines of the novel proper to include chapbooks and illustrated redactions.

Aimed firmly at the student reader, this handbook offers an overview of the full range of the history of France, from the origins of the concept of post-Roman "Francia," through the emergence of a consolidated French monarchy and the development of both nation-state and global empire into the modern era, forward to the current complexities of a modern republic integrated into the European Union and struggling with the global legacies of its past. Short, incisive contributions by a wide range of expert scholars offer both a spine of chronological overviews and a diverse spectrum of up-to-date insights into areas of key interest to historians today. From the ravages of the Vikings to the role of gastronomy in the definition of French culture, from Caribbean slavery to the place of Algerians in present-day France, from the role of French queens in medieval diplomacy to the youth-culture explosion of the 1960s and the explosions of France’s nuclear weapons program, this handbook provides accessible summaries and selected further reading to explore any and all of these issues further, in the classroom and beyond.