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Pierre de L'Estoile and his World in the Wars of Religion Tom Hamilton (University of Durham)

Pierre de L'Estoile and his World in the Wars of Religion By Tom Hamilton (University of Durham)

Pierre de L'Estoile and his World in the Wars of Religion by Tom Hamilton (University of Durham)


£7.00
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Summary

The Wars of Religion embroiled France in decades of faction, violence, and peacemaking in the late sixteenth century. This study offers a new history of these Wars of Religion from the perspective of the period's great diarist and collector, Pierre de L'Estoile (1546-1611), telling the story of his life and times.

Pierre de L'Estoile and his World in the Wars of Religion Summary

Pierre de L'Estoile and his World in the Wars of Religion by Tom Hamilton (University of Durham)

The Wars of Religion embroiled France in decades of faction, violence, and peacemaking in the late sixteenth century. When historians interpret these events they inevitably depend on sources of information gathered by contemporaries, none more valuable than the diaries and collection of Pierre de L'Estoile (1546-1611), who lived through the civil wars in Paris and shaped how they have been remembered ever since. Taking him out of the footnotes, and demonstrating his significance in the culture of the late Renaissance, this is the first life of L'Estoile in any language. It examines how he negotiated and commemorated the conflicts that divided France as he assembled an extraordinary collection of the relics of the troubles, a collection that he called 'the storehouse of my curiosities'. The story of his life and times is the history of the civil wars in the making. Focusing on a crucial individual for understanding Reformation Europe, this study challenges historians' assumptions about the widespread impact of confessional conflict in the sixteenth century. L'Estoile's prudent, non-confessional responses to the events he lived through and recorded were common among his milieu of Gallican Catholics. His life-writing and engagement with contemporary news, books, and pictures reveals how individuals used different genres and media to destabilise rather than fix confessional identities. Bringing together the great variety of topics in society and culture that attracted L'Estoile's curiosity, this volume rethinks his world in the Wars of Religion.

Pierre de L'Estoile and his World in the Wars of Religion Reviews

Tom Hamilton's book is a beautifully crafted study of the life and times of one of the most well-known and oft-quoted authors of the period, the royal office-holder and diarist Pierre de L'Estoile... Hamilton is an excellent story-teller and makes effective use of vignettes to draw the reader into the physical and professional world of L'Estoile and his fellow royal office-holders... Hamilton provides careful analysis of L'Estoile's manuscripts and the sources that informed them, including printed images and broadsheets, as well as the contents of his library... This is a remarkable book, fluently written and nicely illustrated. * Penny Roberts, University of Warwick, Journal of Ecclesiastical History *
The reader will find many interesting and important sources on the Wars of Religion collected in one place, with new and important insights. This clearly opens new possibilities for studies of the period and in the study of early modern autobiographical writing. * Michael Green, Renaissance Quarterly *
Hamilton's great contribution in this work is to take L'Estoile out of the footnotes of other works and make him the central focus of study ... Hamilton situates L'Estoile among many other essayists, diarists, and collectors of the early modern period - including his contemporary Michel de Montaigne - who saw their activities as engaging with and reflecting on the times in which they lived. This well-written account, which is accessible to the nonspecialist, is a welcome and important addition to the field, and one that will shape the use of L'Estoile as a source by future historians. * Eric Nelson, American Historical Review *
Hamilton blends elements of biography and microhistory into a critical analysis of how L'Estoile acquired, engaged, and selected the materials that shaped his works. The result is a more critical understanding of L'Estoile's role in fashioning our understanding of the religious wars. It also provides a fascinating portrait of his private life, his social world, his role as a collector of curiosities, and his own personal experiences of living through the era of the French religious wars. * Edward Tenace, H-War *
This well-written and engaging monograph provides a meticulous analysis of L'Estoile's record keeping practices and his world. * Nina Lamal, The Sixteenth Century Journal *
Hamilton's work demonstrates the process through which L'Estoile's memory helped to determine our own interpretation of the period, an important observation for anyone interested in the Wars of Religion in particular or the construction of historical memory in general. * Hilary Bernstein, H-France *
Thoroughly researched, tautly argued and well supported with telling examples, this is an important book ... a model study of how memory is constructed through the creation and manipulation of texts. * Barbara B. Diefendorf, History *
a fascinating and accomplished monograph ... Tom Hamilton transcends the apparent constraints of the subject by an approach that is original and striking ... [it] will change the way that historians of this period approach his important source-text. * Mark Greengrass, French Studies *
Tom Hamilton has managed to sketch a vivid portrayal of someone who has served as a prism for generations of scholars through which to view everyday events in 16th-century Paris during the turmoil of wars, with his sharp, distanced and trenchant characterizations ... All in all, Tom Hamilton presents a densely researched, sensible and carefully written intellectual and socio-political biography of one of the most central, individual, and interesting testimonies of the period of radicalization during the French Wars of Religion. * Cornel Zwierlein, Francia-Recensio *

About Tom Hamilton (University of Durham)

Tom Hamilton is a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. He studied History at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, and at New College, University of Oxford, and is the author of several articles about the social and cultural history of early modern France and Europe.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1: The Material World of a Household and Collection 2: The Social World of the Palais de Justice 3: Family Life and the Early Civil Wars, 1546-1580 4: The Reign of Henri III, 1574-1589 5: Drolleries of the League, 1589-1598 6: Book Collecting at the End of the Civil Wars, 1598-1611 Conclusion Bibliography Index

Additional information

GOR013262460
9780198800095
0198800096
Pierre de L'Estoile and his World in the Wars of Religion by Tom Hamilton (University of Durham)
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Oxford University Press
20170427
256
Winner of Shortlisted for the 2018 R. Gapper Book Prize for the best book in French Studies.
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

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