Blood and Violence in Early Modern France [Hardcover]

French manners and civility were the model for European civilization, while feud is associated with backward societies. Yet in France thousands of men died in duels in which the supposed rules of honour were regularly flouted. In this detailed and original book Stuart Carroll explores the nature of vengeance and reveals the dark side of Renaissance civilization.

Introduction
Part I: The Structure of Vindicatory Violence
1. The Origins of Dispute - Blood and Earth
2. The Origins of Dispute - Status and Honour
3. Honours and Prerogatives
4. Escalation: From Verbal Duel to Vindicatory Exchange
5. Conspiracy
6. Combat
7. The Rage of the Gods
Part II: Violence and Society
8. Justice and the Law
9. Peace
10. Women, Sex, and Vindicatory Violence
Part III: Violence and the Polity
11. The Crisis of the Religious Wars
12. Violence and Royal Authority in the Seventeenth Century
13. Solutions
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Blood and Violence in Early Modern France...is a close and deep examination of vindicatory violence among France's nobles from the late Middle Ages to the mid-seventeenth century....Carroll contributes greatly to our understanding of the nature of violence in the early modern years and forces us to think deeply about influential models. --Journal of Modern History

Stuart Carroll's research provides a powerful corrective to the notion that a contralizing 'absolutist' state effectively marginalized noble violence and pushed it to the peripheries of the kingdom in the early modern period. This book provides ample evidence of vindicatory violence throughout the extensive jurisdiction of the parlement de Paris, even within the central region of Ile-de-France.Blood and Violence in Early Modern Francecontributes to the growing historical literature critiquing 'absolutist' historiography by re-examining Frenl#)