Law, city, and king : legal culture, munic[i]pal politics, and state formation in early modern Dijon
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Law, city, and king : legal culture, munic[i]pal politics, and state formation in early modern Dijon
（Changing perspectives in early modern Europe）
University of Rochester Press, 2007
- : hbk
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 275-298) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
An in-depth examination of political activities in early modern France that opens up new perspectives on the local workings of the French state and the experiences of those who participated in it.
Law, City, and King provides important new insights into the transformation of political participation and consciousness among urban notables who bridged the gap between local society and the state in early modern France. Breen's detailed research shows how the educated, socially-middling avocats who staffed Dijon's municipality used law, patronage, and the other resources at their disposal to protect the city council's authority and their own participation in local governance. Drawing on juridical and historical authorities, the avocats favored a traditional conception of limited "absolute" monarchy increasingly at odds with royal ideology. Despite their efforts to resist the monarchy's growth, the expansion of royal power under Louis XIV eventually excluded Dijon's avocats from the French state.
In opening up new perspectives on the local workings of the French state and the experiences of those who participated in it, Law, City, and King recasts debates about absolutism and early modern state formation. By focusing on the political alienation of notables who had long linked the crown to provincial society, Breen explains why Louis XIV's collaborative absolutism did not endure. At the same time, the book's examination of lawyers' political activities and ideas provides insights into the transformation of French political culturein the decades leading up to the French Revolution.
Michael P. Breen is Associate Professor of History and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
Table of Contents
Lawyers and Municipal Government in Dijon
The Avocats and the Politics of Local Privilege (1595-1648)
The Collapse of the Municipal Political System (1649-68)
From Local Government to Royal Administration (1669-1715)
Legal Culture and Political Thought in Early Seventeenth-Century Dijon
Custom, Reason, and the Limits of Royal Authority
by "Nielsen BookData"
