From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings, Nobles, & Estates - Brossura

Major, J. Russell

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0801856310 ISBN 13: 9780801856310

Casa editrice: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr, 1997

Riassunto

Scholars of early modern France have traditionally seen an alliance between the kings and the bourgeoisie, leading to an absolute, centralized monarchy, perhaps as early as the reign of Francis I (1515-47). InFrom Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy, eminent historian J. Russell Major draws on forty-five years of research to dispute this view, offering both a masterful synthesis of existing scholarship and new information concerning the role of the nobility in these changes.

Renaissance monarchs, Major contends, had neither the army nor the bureaucracy to create an absolute monarchy; they were strong only if they won the support of the nobility and other vocal elements of the population. At first they enjoyed this support, but the Wars of Religion revealed their inherent weakness. Major describes the struggle between such statesmen as Bellièvre, Sully, Marillac, and Richelieu to impose their concept of reform and includes an account of how Louis XIV created an absolute monarchy by catering to the interests of the nobility and other provincial leaders. It was this "carrot" approach, accompanied by the threat of the "stick," that undergirded his absolutism.

Major concludes that the rise of absolutism was not accompanied, as has often been asserted, by the decline of the nobility. Rather, nobles were able to adapt to changing conditions that included the decline of feudalism, the invention of gunpowder, and inflation. In doing so, they remained the dominant class, whose support kings found it necessary to seek.

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull'autore

J. Russell Major is Charles Howard Candler Professor of Renaissance History Emeritus at Emory University. His many books includeThe Monarchy, the Estates, and the Aristocracy in Renaissance France, Representative Government in Early Modern France, andThe Western World: Renaissance to the Present.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 1997
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0801856310
• ISBN 13: 9780801856310
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 444
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile