From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings, Nobles, and Estates - Softcover

Major, J. Russell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801856310 ISBN 13: 9780801856310

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997

Synopsis

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). In From 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 Belličvre, 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.

About this title

About the Author

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

Edition details

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801856310
• ISBN 13: 9780801856310
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 444