1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9911008480503321

Autore

Hayhoe Jeremy

Titolo

Enlightened feudalism : seigneurial justice and village society in eighteenth-century northern Burgundy / / Jeremy Hayhoe

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Suffolk : , : Boydell & Brewer, , 2008

ISBN

1-282-89495-1

9786612894954

1-58046-721-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xii, 309 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

Changing perspectives on early modern Europe, , 1542-3905 ; ; v. 10

Disciplina

347.44/41

Soggetti

Manorial courts - France - Burgundy - History - 18th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 02 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references ( p. 277-301) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Tiny courts, incompetent judges? -- Justice in the interests of lords -- Justice in the interests of the community -- Conflict and consensus in and out of court -- Local knowledge and legal reform : the transformation of justice -- Tocqueville in the village : seigneurial reaction and the central state -- A popular institution? : seigneurial justice in the cahiers de doléances -- Lords, judges, and the self-regulating village.

Sommario/riassunto

In 'Enlightened Feudalism', Jeremy Hayhoe demonstrates that these local institutions actually functioned with a degree of efficiency, professionalism, and attention to peasant concerns that few historians have appreciated. Set in Northern Burgundy, this study reveals how provincial administrative elites quietly encouraged the use of simpler procedure for minor disputes, thus bringing seigneurial courts closer to village life. But these reforms paradoxically made the newly invigorated courts a key instrument of the late eighteenth-century intensification of the seigneurie. Peasant ambivalence toward seigneurial courts reflected this duality, as the 'cahiers de doléances' both praised the institution for its role in community affairs, and vigorously criticized it for bolstering the seigneurial system. By situating the local court within a wide range of para-judicial institutions and behaviors, Hayhoe presents a new vision of village society, one in which communal bonds were too weak to enforce behavioral norms. Village communities had substantial



authority over their own affairs, but required the frequent and active collaboration of the court to enforce the rules that they put into place. Jeremy Hayhoe is assistant professor at the Université de Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.