Bastards

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-0-19-975537-0
Verlag: ACADEMIC

Buch, Englisch, 288 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 599 g

Children born out of wedlock were commonly stigmatized as "bastards" in early modern France. Deprived of inheritance, they were said to have neither kin nor kind, neither family nor nation. But why was this the case? Gentler alternatives to "bastard" existed in early modern French discourse, and many natural parents voluntarily recognized and cared for their extramarital offspring. Drawing upon a wide array of archival and published sources, Matthew Gerber has
reconstructed numerous disputes over the rights and disabilities of children born out of wedlock in order to illuminate the changing legal condition and practical treatment of extramarital offspring over a period of two and half centuries. His book reveals that the exclusion of extramarital offspring
from the family was perpetually contested in early modern France.

Legal debate over illegitimacy carried political implications for France's dynastic monarchy. When Louis XIV, the Sun King, created a political firestorm by declaring his own extramarital offspring to be capable of inheriting the French crown, political theorists drew upon precedents of private law to argue for or against the exclusion of children born out of wedlock from the throne. Conversely, lawyers and litigants frequently invoked political interest in the course of private lawsuits
involving extramarital offspring. In tracing the evolution of early modern debates over illegitimacy, Bastards offers a political history of the family from the oblique perspective of those who were theoretically excluded from it.

With a cast of characters ranging from royal bastards to foundlings, Bastards offers a broad exploration of the relationship between social and political change in the early modern era. It offers new insight into the changing nature of early modern French law, revealing its evolving contribution to the historical construction of both the family and the state.

Zielgruppe

Academic historians of early modern France, but it should also be of interest to any historian of the early modern world, including specialists in Atlantic or Mediterranean history. It should be of general interest to legal historians; historians of gender, the family, and sexuality; and historians of politics and state development.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gerber

Gerber, Matthew

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface
A Note on the Text
Introduction: Illegitimacy and the Political History of the Family
Part I: Stigmatizing the Bastard
Chapter One: Bastardy in Sixteenth-Century French Legal Doctrine and Practice
Chapter Two: Jurisprudential Reform of Illegitimacy in Seventeenth-Century France
Chapter Three: Royal Bastardy & Dynastic Crisis
Part II: Destigmatizing the Natural Child
Chapter Four: State Expansion, Social Practice, and the Quandaries of Legal Unification
Chapter Five: Redefining Social Interest: The Eighteenth-Century Foundling Crisis
Chapter Six: Illegitimacy and Legal Change in the French Enlightenment
Conclusion
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Assistant Professor of History, University of Colorado, Boulder