Book
Licensed
Unlicensed
Requires Authentication
Feudalism, venality, and revolution
Provincial assemblies in late-Old Regime France
-
Stephen Miller
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2020
About this book
According to Alexis de Tocqueville’s influential work on the Old Regime and the French Revolution, royal centralisation had so weakened the feudal power of the nobles that their remaining privileges became glaringly intolerable to commoners. This book challenges the theory by showing that when Louis XVI convened assemblies of landowners in the late 1770s and 1780s to discuss policies needed to resolve the budgetary crisis, he faced widespread opposition from lords and office holders. These elites regarded the assemblies as a challenge to their hereditary power over commoners. The king’s government comprised seigneurial jurisdictions and venal offices. Lordships and offices upheld inequality on behalf of the nobility and bred the discontent motivating the people to make the French Revolution.
Author / Editor information
Stephen Miller is Associate Professor of History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham
Topics
-
Download PDFPublicly Available
Front matter
i -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Contents
v -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Acknowledgments
vi -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Introduction
1 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
1 The king’s entourage and public clashes over provincial assemblies
14 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
2 The emergence of anti-noble politics and the provincial assembly of Berry
49 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
3 Bourgeois liberalism and revolutionary politics
75 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
4 Poitou and the question of feudalism, from the Old Regime to revolution and counterrevolution
105 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
5 Provincial assemblies and the revolutionary challenge to patrimonialism
138 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
6 Village elections and the development of liberal perspectives on government
161 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Conclusion
185 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Bibliography
194 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Index
217
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
September 13, 2023
eBook ISBN:
9781526148384
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781526148384
Keywords for this book
Feudalism; Venality of Office; Revolution; Early modern France; Absolutist state; Poitou; Lyon; Berry; Provincial assemblies; Social class analysis
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
