Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth Century France
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.91 (569 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0745605311 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 280 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-08-22 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Natalie Davis is a very good writer and researcher Amazon Customer Interesting look at the myths that get passed down through the ages. Natalie Davis is a very good writer and researcher.. "A Lucid Foundational Study for Any New Historian" according to A Customer. Natalie Davis' study probes the Pardon letters of sixteenth century France in an attempt to discern the fundamental attitudes of sixteenth-century society regarding violence, religion, crime and other matters. She points out that while the pardon letters are not necessarily the "objective" truth of events, they do provide us with an invaluable glimpse into how common people in the Sixteenth Century told tales and what aspects of life they considered important when composing their tales of woe and betrayal which lead to their imprisonment. Davis' style and insights are witty, concise and yet. Interesting read C. McCullough This was a very fascinating read. Davis uses enough real life examples to keep the reader interested but not so many that you become overwhelmed. My only criticism is that I wish she had provided a little background information. Davis assumes the reader knows the specifics of the time period.
This book is an account of life and death in early modern France. It is an analysis of the crime stories which men and women told their judges in order to try to save themselves from the gallows. To receive a royal pardon for murder in 16th century France, a supplicant had to tell the king a story. Many of the pardon tales are accounts of murder for sexual motives and thus reveal something of the sexual conventions of the time and the inequalities between men and women. The author examines the different ways in which men and women, and especially husbands and wives, told their murder stories and the differing ways in which their explanations and excuses were received. This work is a blend of history, literature and law and should be of interest to students of early modern European history, Renaissance literature, the history of criminal law and women's studies.. Thousands of such stories are found in the French archives, providing evidence of the narrative skills and life conditions of peasants, artisans and the well-to-do
This collection of eight essays, her first book, reprints five of the most important of her published articles along with three entirely new ones. Each of these eight essays bears the imprint of Davis's distinctive style, a style which is characterized above all by the exceptional range of perspectives which she brings to bear on whatever subject she discusses. "Natalie Zemon Davis's articles have already earned her a reputation among those familiar with her work as one of the most brilliant and original historians active in American today. For virtually every one of these essays is the kind of model study w