Montaigne: A Life - Hardcover

Desan, Philippe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691167877 ISBN 13: 9780691167879

Verlag: Princeton Univers. Press, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

One of the most important writers and thinkers of the Renaissance, Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) helped invent a literary genre that seemed more modern than anything that had come before. But did he do it, as he suggests in his Essays, by retreating to his chateau, turning his back on the world, and stoically detaching himself from his violent times? In this definitive biography, Philippe Desan, one of the worlds leading authorities on Montaigne, overturns this longstanding myth by showing that Montaigne was constantly concerned with realizing his political ambitions - and that the literary and philosophical character of the Essays largely depends on them. The most comprehensive and authoritative biography of Montaigne yet written, this sweeping narrative offers a fascinating new picture of his life and work.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Philippe Desan is the Howard L. Willett Professor in Renaissance Literature and History of Culture at the University of Chicago and the author of many books.

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"The new standard biography of Montaigne. Phillipe Desan throws new light on Montaigne's rewriting of the Essays through a study of his changing political aspirations."--Peter Mack, University of Warwick

"This biography is thoroughly illuminating and it is difficult to imagine that it could be bettered. It will surely hold the field for decades."--Michael Moriarty, University of Cambridge

"Philippe Desan's biography offers a refreshing corrective to those Lives of Montaigne that have underplayed his political activities and aspirations by presenting his literary activities as belonging to their own autonomous sphere. The book offers some intriguing new interpretations, including a compelling account of the different circumstances that surround--and intentions that may animate--the various editions of the Essays."--Richard Scholar, University of Oxford

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Montaigne

A Life

By Philippe Desan, Steven Rendall, Lisa Neal

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2017 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-691-16787-9

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, ix, 
PROLOGUE, xi, 
INTRODUCTION, xvii, 
Questions of Method and the Politics of a Book, xix, 
Part One — Ambitions, 
CHAPTER 1 THE EYQUEMS' SOCIAL ASCENSION, 3, 
CHAPTER 2 A FIRST CAREER AS A MAGISTRATE (1556–1570), 48, 
CHAPTER 3 LA BOÉTIE AND MONTAIGNE: DISCOURSE ON SERVITUDE AND ESSAY OF ALLEGIANCE, 112, 
CHAPTER 4 "WITNESS MY CANNIBALS": THE ENCOUNTER WITH THE INDIANS OF THE NEW WORLD, 155, 
CHAPTER 5 THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN (1570–1580), 183, 
CHAPTER 6 THE ESSAIS OF 1580: MORAL, POLITICAL, AND MILITARY DISCOURSES, 254, 
Part Two — Practices, 
CHAPTER 7 THE CALL OF ROME, OR HOW MONTAIGNE NEVER BECAME AN AMBASSADOR (1580–1581), 319, 
CHAPTER 8 "MESSIEURS OF BORDEAUX ELECTED ME MAYOR OF THEIR CITY" (1581–1585), 408, 
CHAPTER 9 "BENIGNITY OF THE GREAT" AND "PUBLIC RUIN" (1585–1588), 482, 
CHAPTER 10 THE MARGINALIZATION OF MONTAIGNE (1588–1592), 549, 
Part Three — Post Mortem, 
CHAPTER 11 MONTAIGNE'S POLITICAL POSTERITY, 613, 
EPILOGUE, 631, 
ABBREVIATIONS, 635, 
NOTES, 637, 
BIBLIOGRAPHY, 723, 
TRANSLATIONS CITED, 765, 
INDEX, 767, 

CHAPTER 1

The Eyquems' Social Ascension

"And if I were to live a long time, I do not doubt that I would forget my own name." Montaigne's name constitutes the author's memory and incarnates the history of a family and its social ascension, but we still need to know what name Montaigne is talking about. Is it Michel Eyquem, his patronymic, or Michel de Montaigne, the name of his estate and his seigneury? The answer to this question differs over time, and the passage from Eyquem to Montaigne is a textbook case for the study of the social history of the class of wealthy merchants and bourgeois who became gentlemen at the end of the fifteenth and throughout the sixteenth centuries. The author of the Essais was the first member of his family to give up the name of his ancestors and retain only the name of his seigneury. In fact, the biography of "Michel, seigneur Montaigne" begins long before his birth. To understand his familial milieu, we have to study the social ascension of the house of Montaigne that started in the middle of the fourteenth century. The economic transformations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries favored the emergence and domination of well-off merchant families who had settled in the great European cities.

Political power slowly but surely shifted toward centers of exchange and commerce, particularly cities built on navigable waterways or at the mouths of rivers. Bordeaux was ideally situated to become a hub serving most European ports. Its access to the ocean gave a major advantage to those whose main activity consisted in warehousing merchandise and sending it on by sea to new markets. In the fifteenth century, during the decline of the English presence in the region, Bordeaux was a land of opportunity, and a significant number of merchants emigrated there from other parts of France and also from Spain and Portugal. For example, an edict of 1464 authorized emigrants to settle in Bordeaux in houses they found empty and to obtain letters of naturalization. Very early on, the wheels of commerce and the administrative control of the city were concentrated in the hands of a few families that had been able to benefit from the commercial development of Guyenne after the departure of the English.

In the fourteenth century, the name Eyquem was quite common in the Bordeaux region. It was spelled "Ayquem" and "Aiquem" as well as "Eyquem" and is found in several localities, including Mérignac, Taillan, Pessac, Camblanes, Blanquefort, and Langon. The Eyquems of Blanquefort — from whom the Montaignes descended — settled in Bordeaux in the early fourteenth century and joined the jurade as early as 1358, a sign that they had already achieved a significant economic success. Wealthy Bordeaux families formed a bourgeoisie that was little inclined to discuss its origins. Focused on the future, they practiced endogamy to increase their status in the city and to favor their access to municipal political power. Their goal was to advance their social position by means of marriages with other great bourgeois families. In the city, a political void allowed these families to take control of the administration in order to manage the regulation of their economic and commercial activities. By the middle of the fifteenth century, English power had grown considerably weaker in Guyenne, and in 1453 the battle of Castillon put an end to three centuries of English domination in Aquitaine. A parlement was established in 1462, and the city's privileges were approved and confirmed by Charles VIII in 1483. The king was generous toward the bourgeois of Bordeaux, declaring them free and exempt from having to pay subsidies and land taxes or make compulsory loans. Troops could not be billeted in the city without the consent of the mayor and the magistrates, and the city's guard as well as its police were entrusted to the citizens. However, after the English left, Guyenne's share of the land tax to be collected in Aquitaine was doubled. In this context of European expansion and political reforms, the city of Bordeaux underwent an unprecedented economic growth at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries.

Under Francis I the Anciennes Coutumes de Guyenne ("ancient customary laws of Guyenne") were reformed to take into account the local bourgeoisie's demands. The three estates of the sénéchaussée of Guyenne assembled in February 1520 to modify the old Coutumier. Several articles were suppressed or changed and new ones were added. The work lasted five months and the reformed Coutumier went into effect toward the end of 1527. Its territory was extended to include the former sénéchaussée of Bordeaux. The new customary law of Guyenne, which heavily favored the bourgeoisie, consisted of 117 articles written in a rather disorderly fashion and without much equity. Questions of inheritance and testamentary succession strongly recentered customary law around the transmission of property, and the goal of the great majority of the articles was to provide better protection for private property and to favor bourgeois property owners over the feudal territorial rights of noble landlords. The first article sets the tone of this rewriting of customary law. It stipulates that every son of a merchant family engaged in commerce or other business (banking, brokerage, purchasing) "can make commitments without his father's consent, in matters concerning merchandise or business." For example, children had the right to do business under their own names without depending on the authority of their fathers. In the same spirit of liberalizing mercantile law, Article V reorganized the law governing the legacy of goods to descendants by specifying that lineal transmission henceforth always had priority over feudal law. Inheritances, successions, transmissions, and donations of buildings, as well as the regulation of rents and mortgages, were subjected to new interpretations favorable to the rising bourgeoisie and represented more than sixty articles in the Coutumes générales de la ville de Bordeaux et de la sénéchaussée de...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton Univers. Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691167877
• ISBN 13: 9780691167879
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 832
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Princeton University Press; https://press.princeton.edu/books; ; 7th Floor, New South Building; PRINCETON; NJ; 8544; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar