The etiquette of social violence: Hunting and the nobility in early modern France

Michael S Aradas, Purdue University

Abstract

My dissertation examines the noble prerogative of hunting as a social and cultural act in early modern France. Using a wide variety of evidence types, especially visual images (paintings, woodcuts, tapestries, and sculptures for example) I examine the changing emphasis the French nobility placed on hunting as a social boundary between themselves and the rest of society. Nouveau riche families mimicked their betters and adopted noble activities such as hunting for themselves; the nobility reacted initially with protestations and violence. By the mid-seventeenth century, however, the nobility was gradually adopting the notion of civility: violent marks of nobility, especially hunting and dueling, were surpassed in importance by less violent marks such as genealogies and education. The relationship between humans and animals also changed from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. Animals served as material touchpoints for complex, humancreated networks of cultural correspondences, many of them religious. Christianity had three patron saints of hunting, and individual phases of the hunt itself had religious significance. Many of these associations had deep roots in pre-Christian folklore. By the mid-sixteenth century, however, the popularity of “emparking” (building walls around one's forests and pastures to keep poachers out and game animals in) destroyed these cultural relationships. Animals were counted, classified, and even branded. With such cataloging they lost their religious mystique and became possessions.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Farr, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Modern history|European history|Social structure|History

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