The European Nobility, 1400-1800This book is the first comprehensive history of the European nobility between the Renaissance and the French Revolution. Designed to introduce students and nonspecialists to the subject, it explains all the principal themes in an authoritative and accessible manner. Challenging the conventional point of view, Professor Dewald maintains that the nobles of Europe adapted effectively to the profound changes that marked society and culture at this time. He also argues that the nobility throughout Europe faced the same challenges and reacted to them in similar ways, despite their varying numbers and privileges. |
Contents
The European nobilities as an historical problem | 1 |
Nature and numbers | 15 |
the biology of social mobility | 16 |
Processes of mobility | 19 |
Numbers | 22 |
Privileges | 28 |
criticism of the nobility | 33 |
The rise of the administrative nobilities | 36 |
Spending | 98 |
Nobles and politics | 108 |
Regional communities | 110 |
The regional community and political change | 115 |
kings administrators subjects | 118 |
The court | 122 |
Ideals and realities | 127 |
The problem of rebellion | 134 |
Rich and poor nobles | 40 |
The urbanization of the nobility | 48 |
Alternative models of gentility | 51 |
Wealth privilege and the encounter with change | 60 |
Hierarchies of wealth | 62 |
Land and lordship | 65 |
Patterns of change | 69 |
Establishing the domain | 76 |
Administering the estate | 82 |
The country house | 89 |
Alternative forms of wealth | 93 |
Serving the state | 97 |
The absolutist compromise | 140 |
Lives and cultures | 149 |
A cultural revolution? | 151 |
Cultural patronage and cuItural production | 157 |
The psychology of privacy | 163 |
The family and the self | 168 |
The problem of religion | 176 |
The impact of Enlightenment | 183 |
Toward a new society the French Revolution and beyond | 188 |
Suggestions for further reading | 202 |
207 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Adel Alexis de Tocqueville aristocratic Cambridge Castiglione Catholic central claimed contemporaries court courtier cultural dominated duke Early Modern France early modern period economic eighteenth century elegant England English enjoyed established estate owners Europe Europe's European nobilities fact feudal fifteenth forms France French nobility French nobles French Revolution gentry Germany Habsburg Habsburg Monarchy hardback 0 521 historians ideals ideas important income increasingly Italy Jonathan Dewald K. B. McFarlane king land landowners large numbers late Lawrence Stone lives London lords lordship marriage medieval Middle Ages military needed noble families nobleman nobles found Noblesse numbers offered officials Oxford Pastons peasants percent of population political Pont-St-Pierre poor nobles prince Princeton privileges provincial Quoted rebellion regions religious rich role royal servants seventeenth century sixteenth and seventeenth sixteenth century social society Spain Spanish status taxes third estate trans urban violence warfare wealth women XVIIIe siècle