Louis XI, known as "The Spider King" because he wove many intricate plots, lives on in popular imagination primarily as a villain and a cruel, cunning, rather unscrupulous character. Absolutists fled to his banner whilst constitutionalists reviled him as a rapacious totalitarian murderer. In Images of Kingship in Early Modern France, Adrianna Bakos uses the changing nature of Louis XI's historical reputation to explore the intellectual and political climate of early modern France. Using Louis XI's historical reputation as a prism for fresh investigation, Adrianna Bakos offers new, more complex interpretations of the ideological landscape of early modern France. Images of Kingship in Early Modern France is an important contribution to European historiography and to debates on historical versus political interpretations of Kingship.

This collection examines the afterlives of early modern English and French rulers. Spanning five centuries of cultural memory, the volume offers case studies of how kings and queens were remembered, represented, and reincarnated in a wide range of sources, from contemporary pageants, plays, and visual art to twenty-first-century television, and from premodern fiction to manga and romance novels. With essays on well-known figures such as Elizabeth I and Marie Antoinette as well as lesser-known monarchs such as Francis II of France and Mary Tudor, Queen of France, Remembering Queens and Kings of Early Modern England and France brings together reflections on how rulers live on in collective memory.

France and England are often seen as monarchies standing at opposite ends of the spectrum of seventeenth-century European political culture. On the one hand the Bourbon monarchy took the high road to absolutism, while on the other the Stuarts never quite recovered from the diminution of their royal authority following the regicide of Charles I in 1649. However, both monarchies shared a common medieval heritage of sacral kingship, and their histories remained deeply entangled throughout the century. This study focuses on the interaction between ideas of monarchy and images of power in the two countries between the execution of Mary Queen of Scots and the Glorious Revolution. It demonstrates that even in periods when politics were seemingly secularized, as in France at the end of the Wars of Religion, and in latter seventeenth- century England, the appeal to religious images and values still lent legitimacy to royal authority by emphasizing the sacral aura or providential role which church and religion conferred on monarchs.

Adrianna Bakos uses the changing nature of Louis XI's historical reputation to explore the intellectual and political climate of early modern France, offering new, more complex interpretations of its ideological landscape.

This volume celebrates the career of Professor J.H.M. Salmon, whose work on the study of early modern Europe enjoys a high reputation world-wide. Appropriately centred on France, the essays make a significant contribution to the study of political life and thought during the ancien regime. Proceeding from a variety of vantage points, some of the foremost scholars in the field of early modern Europe consider the many ways in which contemporaries in different walks of life expressed their understanding of, and participation in, the political community, using new approaches drawn from cultural history, the history of ideologies and a resurgence of interest in the history of institutions. Subjects discussed include institutional rivalries and how they complicated efforts to mount opposition to government policies; political thought and concepts such as sovereignty, conciliarism, and dominum; and how contemporary understanding of the political order was worked out in a cultural context. The volume also suggests new directions for research.

Historians of the ancien régime have long been interested in the relationship between religion and politics, and yet many issues remain contentious, including the question of sacral monarchy. Scholars are divided over how - and, indeed, if - it actually operated. With its nuanced analysis of the cult of Saint Louis, covering a vast swathe of French history from the Wars of Religion through the zenith of absolute monarchy under Louis XIV to the French Revolution and Restoration, Sacral Kingship in Bourbon France makes a major contribution to this debate and to our overall understanding of France in this fascinating period. Saint Louis IX was the ancestor of the Bourbons and widely regarded as the epitome of good Christian kingship. As such, his cult and memory held a significant place in the political, religious, and artistic culture of Bourbon France. However, as this book reveals, likenesses to Saint Louis were not only employed by royal flatterers but also used by opponents of the monarchy to criticize reigning kings. What, then, does Saint Louis' cult reveal about how monarchies fostered a culture of loyalty, and how did sacral monarchy interact with the dramatic religious, political and intellectual developments of this era? From manuscripts to paintings to music, Sean Heath skilfully engages with a vast array of primary source material and modern debates on sacral kingship to provide an enlightening and comprehensive analysis of the role of Saint Louis in early modern France.

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.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.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.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. 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.