Princes Patronage And The Nobility

Using a comparative perspective, this volume studies the court as a crucial center of government and politics, as well as the dominant focus for the ruling elites. The essays explore how the early modern court gradually developed from the medieval royal household to its very different form in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Comparing England, Germany, France, Spain as well as the Netherlands and Italy, the editors find that several common themes emerge: the problem of integrating a number of often vastly different provinces and principalities through the attraction of a court; the capital city's function as the basis of the court and as its rival; the role of the Court during the great religious conflicts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and the court as an instrument for domesticating the nobility and a stronghold of aristocratic influence.

The essays in this volume discuss princely courts north of the Alps and Pyrenees between 1450-1650 as focal points for products of medieval and renaissance culture such as literature, music, political ideology, social and governmental structures, the fine arts and devotional practice.

The dual themes of this volume are the characteristics of patronage relationships and their political uses in early modern France. The first essays provide an overview of the scholarly literature and suggest that the obligatory reciprocity of the patron-client exchange was a defining characteristic. The third and fourth essays compare patronage relationships with kinship and friendship, while the following two focus on the patronage role of noblewomen. Professor Kettering then looks at the role of brokerage in state formation in early modern France, comparing this with other early modern societies. In the final section she explores the role of patronage in the religious wars of the late 16th century and in the civil war of the Fronde a half century later, and the ways in which it was affected by the changing lifestyles of the great nobles during the late 17th century.

In recent years scholars have increasingly challenged and reassessed the once established concept of the 'crisis of the nobility' in early-modern Europe. Offering a range of case studies from countries across Europe this collection further expands our understanding of just how the nobility adapted to the rapidly changing social, political, religious and cultural circumstances around them. By allowing readers to compare and contrast a variety of case studies across a range of national and disciplinary boundaries, a fuller - if more complex - picture emerges of the strategies and actions employed by nobles to retain their influence and wealth. The nobility exploited Renaissance science and education, disruptions caused by war and religious strife, changing political ideas and concepts, the growth of a market economy, and the evolution of centralized states in order to maintain their lineage, reputation, and position. Through an examination of the differing strategies utilized to protect their status, this collection reveals much about the fundamental role of the 'second order' in European history and how they had to redefine the social and cultural 'spaces' in which they found themselves. By using a transnational and comparative approach to the study of the European nobility, the volume offers exciting new perspectives on this important, if often misunderstood, social group.

An authoritative and accessible survey of the European nobility over four centuries.

This controversial study takes the provocative line that the French monarchy was a complete success. James turns the idea of royal ‘absolutism’ on its head by redefining the French monarchy’s success from 1598 - 1661. The Origins of French Absolutism, 1598-1661 maintains that building blocks were not being laid by the so-called architects of absolutism, but that by satisfying long-established, traditional ambitions, cardinal ministers Richelieu and Mazarin undoubtedly made the confident, ambitious reign of the late century possible.

In recent years the study of medieval courts has become a flourishing field. The courts of kings and popes, or of the Burgundian dukes, have usually attracted most attention. This book offers by contrast a wide-ranging study of a little-known, medium-sized court - that of Guelders in the Low Countries. Guelders offers an excellent vantage point for the study of European late medieval court culture. It was surrounded by the vast territories of the dukes of Burgundy, and it felt the growing power of the Valois dukes, yet the duchy managed to remain independent until 1473. Rich archival sources - including a long and virtually unbroken series of ducal accounts - reveal much about the rise of territorial or 'proto-national' awareness and about the role of the court in this process. The book also conveys the striking cultural and political richness of the court, poised between French and German spheres of influence.

One of the most brilliant courtiers and military leaders in Renaissance France, Jacques de Savoie, duke of Nemours, was head of the cadet branch of the house of Savoy, a dynasty that had ruled over a collection of lands in the Western Alps since the eleventh century. Jacques’ cousin Emanuel Filibert, duke of Savoy and ruler of the Sabaudian lands, fought against Jacques, and each expanded their influence at the other’s expense, while also benefitting from the other’s position. This study examines the complex and rich relationship of the noble cousins that spanned the battlefields, bedchambers, courts, and backrooms of taverns from Paris to Turin to the frontiers between the Genevois and Geneva. Each prince played key roles in sixteenth-century European politics due to their individual and dynastic identities. Jacques’ apanage of the Genevois was a virtual state-within-a-state, the institutional expression of a simultaneously competitive and cooperative relationship between two branches of a sovereign house. Here Matthew Vester provides a new picture of the nobility and of the European political landscape that moves beyond old views and taps into the unspoken cultural rules governing dynastic relations.