Rise and Fall of the Renaissance in France

History

Knecht, R.J.

Europe

Harper Collins. New York.

The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France (Fontana History of France)

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Fontana Press

The name of Francis I and his emblem, the salamander, are familiar to the many thousands of tourists who visit the chateaux of the Loire each year. But what sort of monarch was he? Whereas in his own day he was acclaimed as 'the great king Francis', in more recent times he has generally been taken less seriously than his exact contemporaries Henry VIII of England and the Emperor Charles V. Yet his reign was no less important than theirs. It witnessed and promoted fundamental changes in France's political structure, economy, society, religion and cultural life. The king's obsession with war stimulated constitutional change. By entailing expenditures far in excess of the crown's traditional resources, it obliged him to tap new sources of wealth, to reorganise the fiscal system and to promote administrative centralisation. Economically, Francis' reign saw the completion of the recovery that had followed the Hundred Years' War. While the land was reclaimed, the population grew, town life flourished and trade expanded.

Francis I

Cambridge University Press

The name of Francis I and his emblem, the salamander, are familiar to the many thousands of tourists who visit the chateaux of the Loire each year. But what sort of monarch was he? Whereas in his own day he was acclaimed as 'the great king Francis', in more recent times he has generally been taken less seriously than his exact contemporaries Henry VIII of England and the Emperor Charles V. Yet his reign was no less important than theirs. It witnessed and promoted fundamental changes in France's political structure, economy, society, religion and cultural life. The king's obsession with war stimulated constitutional change. By entailing expenditures far in excess of the crown's traditional resources, it obliged him to tap new sources of wealth, to reorganise the fiscal system and to promote administrative centralisation. Economically, Francis' reign saw the completion of the recovery that had followed the Hundred Years' War. While the land was reclaimed, the population grew, town life flourished and trade expanded.

Francis I (Cambridge Paperback Library)

Arts & Photography

This book offers a full and comprehensive account of one of the most colorful and formative reigns in French history, that of Francis I (1515-47), and was published to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Francis I's birth in 1494. It is a completely revised edition of Professor Knecht's earlier study of the king, first published in 1982 and for many years the standard work on the subject. That edition is now superseded by this substantially larger work, in which much new written and illustrative material has been included. No other work on the subject is as up to date or as authoritative.

Renaissance Warrior and Patron: The Reign of Francis I

Catherine de' Medici (1519-89) was the wife of one king of France and the mother of three more - the last, sorry representatives of the Valois, who had ruled France since 1328. She herself is of preeminent importance to French history, and one of the most controversial of all historical figures. Despised until she was powerful enough to be hated, she was, in her own lifetime and since, the subject of a "Black Legend" that has made her a favourite subject of historical novelists (most notably Alexandre Dumas, whose Reine Margot has recently had new currency on film). Yet there is no recent biography of her in English. This new study, by a leading scholar of Renaissance France, is a major event. Catherine, a neglected and insignificant member of the Florentine Medici, entered French history in 1533 when she married the son of Francis I for short-lived political reasons: her uncle was pope Clement VII, who died the following year. Now of no diplomatic value, Catherine was treated with contempt at the French court even after her husband's accession as Henry II in 1547. Even so, she gave him ten children before he was killed in a tournament in 1559. She was left with three young boys, who succeeded to the throne as Francis II (1559-60), Charles IX (1560-74) and Henry III (1574-89). As regent and queen-mother, a woman and with no natural power-base of her own, she faced impossible odds. France was accelerating into chaos, with political faction at court and religious conflict throughout the land. As the country disintegrated, Catherine's overriding concern was for the interests of her children. She was tireless in her efforts to protect her sons' inheritance, and to settle her daughters in advantageous marriages. But France needed more. Catherine herself was both peace-loving and, in an age of frenzied religious hatred, unbigoted. She tried to use the Huguenots to counterbalance the growing power of the ultra-Catholic Guises but extremism on all sides frustrated her. She was drawn into the violence. Her name is ineradicably associated with its culmination, the Massacre of St Bartholomew (24 August 1572), when thousands of Huguenots were slaughtered in Paris and elsewhere. To this day no-one knows for certain whether Catherine instigated the massacre or not, but here Robert Knecht explores the probabilities in a notably level-headed fashion. His book is a gripping narrative in its own right. It offers both a lucid exposition of immensely complex events (with their profound imact on the future of France), and also a convincing portrait of its enigmatic central character. In going behind the familiar Black Legend, Professor Knecht does not make the mistake of whitewashing Catherine; but he shows how intractable was her world, and how shifty or intransigent the people with whom she had to deal. For all her flaws, she emerges as a more sympathetic - and, in her pragmatism, more modern - figure than most of her leading contemporaries.

Catherine de'Medici

Routledge

Catherine De' Medici (Profiles in Power)

Leaders & Notable People

Longman Pub. Group

The French wars of religion were part of the wider religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants that was being fought across Europe.This study sets the French wars in their full European context.

The French Civil Wars, 1562-1598 (Modern Wars in Perspective)

Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd

The French Wars of Religion tore the country apart for almost fifty years. They were also part of the wider religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants which raged across Europe during the 16th century. This new study, by a major authority on French history, explores the impact of these wars and sets them in their full European context.

French Civil Wars, 1562 - 1598, The

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