The epoch 1614-1660 forms a period of reconstruction following on the anarchy of the Religious Wars, during which the medieva1 institutions of assistance, hospitals, schools, etc, small and localised but probably meeting the needs of small, rural populations fairly adequately, collapsed or degenerated. After 1614, assistance gras organised on modern lines, catering for a proletariat population on a pretty large scale. Hospitals, though mostly of private foundation, were administered by tam authorities. These maintained an ultra-conservative attitude towards medical problems, but in their approach to administrative problems followed modern lines. Improvements included: (a) the extension and improvement of wards, more adequate supply of eater. (b) more careful grading, the erection of isolation hospitals and convalescent hashes, provision of maternity wards. (a) the speoialleation'of the care of orphaned and abandoned children, ( in Paris, first as a private venture in 1638, as a municipal institution from 1670 ). This included the nursing of infants, the systematic supervision of country foster-mothers, the teaching and apprenticing of older children. The visiting of the siok-poor is their own hmes, initiated by St. Vincent in country diatriots, was taken up by town parishes. The women of the " confraternities ' systematically prepared and distributed food, linen and utensils. The companies were autonomous, but were inspected annually and helped in emergencies by the ' Ladies of Charity ' in Paris. St. Vinoent's letters mention 107 groups which he organised, in addition to those of the Paris parishes. Mazy others were established on the same model. The need for trained workers for the more technical duties, nursing in the home and in hospitals and the teaching of little girls, led to the evolution of the Sisters of Charity ". In Paris, private ' Companies of Charity ' eked out the meagre provision of the ' Grand Bureau des Pauvres' in the distribution of out-relief to ' respectable poor', set up depots for the furnishing of shopkeepers and artisans with iaaterials, apprenticed children, and inspected the Paris schools catering for large numbers of poor children who were provided with free dinners, clothes, etc. ( Note, the first Labour Exchange dates from this period ). These companies organised relief on a very large scale for the intaded duchy of Lorraine, and for Paris and the provinces of Picardy end Champagne during the Fronde. The success of their relief-centres encouraged them to tackle the problem of the Paris vagrants, and the huge General-Hospital or workhouse was opened in 1655. In the following half-century, similar workhouses were established in most large towns, while the "Confraternities of Charity" were supposed to cater for rural poor.

This thesis examines reworkings of the flâneur in France and Britain during the nineteenth century (1806-1869). It suggests that before it was made famous by Baudelaire, this urban observer emerged out of French and British print culture, and of crossings between them. It has endured because it is a protean, composite figure which weaves in and out of literature, journalism and essays. Its roots in print, the thesis argues, fostered a form of cross-cultural pollination which ensured the power and persistence of the figure. Given the metamorphosis of the flâneur from ‘type’ to literary character to ‘critical concept,’ the thesis looks at flânerie as a fluid concept which demands both rigour and a possibility of going astray. My corpus reflects this flexibility since it includes newspapers and physiologies, as well as works by De Quincey, Dickens, Brontë, Balzac and Baudelaire. The thesis is chronologically structured, and begins with a study of the flâneur’s origins, exploring how the early Parisian flâneur of the press and physiologies finds predecessors and descendants in the London press. Chapter 2 demonstrates how the flâneur is rooted in the British and French collective literary imagination and is thus inextricably linked to other gazing figures whose traits he adopts and discards as he moves seamlessly through time. Chapter 3 examines how ever-evolving optical technologies profoundly altered the flâneur’s ‘ways of seeing.’ Chapter 4 is a phenomenological exploration of walking, demonstrating that the flâneur’s gaze is also created through a living, moving body embedded in time and space. The final chapter introduces the concept of croisement, a heuristic device I develop to understand the role of the flâneur as passeur and go-between and re-read the literary history of flânerie as one of constant crossings and crossovers. It concludes that the flâneur’s permanent in-betweenness or ‘out-of-jointness’ makes him ‘contemporary’1 – more capable than others of grasping his own time.

Despite the frequently world-class nature of French funerary monuments of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a period of prolonged social, cultural and military upheaval in France, no English-speaking scholar has studied them in any depth since Anthony Blunt in the 1950s and 1970s. This neglect is partly due to the impact of the iconoclasms, mutilation and destruction of monuments during the sixteenth-century Wars of Religion and the French Revolution in the eighteenth century. In consequence, most literature has focused on a limited selection of high-status sepulchres, mainly preserved in the Louvre and Saint-Denis. Although some of the best works of their kind, these monuments are not representative of sixteenth-century French funerary sculpture as a whole, as they were placed into artificial repositories in the process of revolutionary iconoclasm and post-revolutionary nationalism. In consequence, they have been alienated from their original locations, their architectural frameworks and historical contexts, which distorts their significance and meaning. Drawing upon a much wider database of monuments assembled during an extended research trip, this thesis challenges these preconceptions, demonstrating that France’s early modern sepulchral heritage is richer than previously assumed. By analysing a broader base of samples from a multitude of geographical locations against their historical circumstances and architectural settings, this thesis attempts to reconstruct some of the socio-political and religious contexts which led to noble patrons’ preference of a specific mode of tomb at a certain point in time. Using a chronological approach focusing on key critical events, it promises to provide a fuller understanding of the variety of sixteenth-century tomb sculpture and its significance in French history.

The story of the French Prophets has gone down as one of the greatest examples of religious enthusiasm in English religious history. It began in 1706 with the arrival in London of three inspired Camisards from Southern France and ended with the foundation of the Shakers in 1747. These Prophets claimed to be possessed by the Holy Spirit and announced the end of the world and Christ’s Second Coming to the local Huguenot community, but rapidly attracted a majority of English speaking followers. Their ecstatic trances and alleged supernatural powers caused a great controversy over the nature of enthusiasm in the ‘Age of Reason’. This thesis examines the significance of enthusiasm in the context of the Toleration Act of 1689 through the particular case of the French Prophets. It argues that enthusiasm meant much more than religious fanaticism in the eighteenth century and that it should be viewed in opposition to the Enlightenment. It takes an thematic approach to enthusiasm in order to reflect the multiple impacts the Prophets had on eighteenth-century England, with each chapter addressing the issue from a different perspective. Chapter one retraces their origins from Languedoc and covers the persecution and exodus of the Huguenots after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and their arrival in England. The second chapter looks at the Camisards’ belief system and how they fitted in the English religious landscape. Chapter three analyses the social composition and organisation of the group, while the fourth chapter concentrates on their communication and the battle of pamphlets they created. The prosecution of radical dissenters in the post-Toleration era is then discussed in chapter five. Lastly, chapter six examines the medical debate on insanity and the growing perception of enthusiasm as an illness.

This thesis begins with a discussion of the source material relevant to the study of Ebroin's career, and the most prominent source, the 'Passio Leudegarii', is discussed in detail. An account of the secondary tradition is given, and it is found that the most recent study of Ebroin's career, by J.Fischer, is in many ways unsatisfactory. The notion that Ebroin was 'low-born' is set in its fullest context and the evidence for it is dismissed. Then the growing power of the 'majores domus' is described against the background of general developments in the 'regnum Francorum' from the year 613. Events from 657 to 664/5 are then discussed, and through a detailed account of the 'Aunemundus affair', the 'modus operandi' of the Merovingians is des~rlbed. This is followed by general observations on the dynasty's resources, and on the economic conditions obtaining in Francia. Ebroin's career to 673 and the rule of Childeric II from 673 to 675 are then discussed, and the revolt against Ebroin in 673 is studied in detail; in terms of politics both at the centre and on the periphery of the 'regnum'. Here the idea of long-established separatist pressure in Aquitaine and Burgundy is examined and found to be unsatisfactory. Next, Ebroin's return to power and his career from 675-680 are discussed, and alternative suggestions in chronological and narrative detail are put forward. There is then a brief survey of the main events to circa 719 in order to de~pen the perspective in which Ebroin's career can be viewed. This is said to result in a view of his career as an important illustration of later seventh century political conflict in Francia. It counters, however, the notion that it was a critical determinant factor in the 'regnum's' longer term political development.

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Antoine Vallot worked as premier médecin du roi (Chief Physician to the King) to Louis XIV of France from 1652 to 1671. In this position, he participated in some of the most important political and medical developments in early modern France. Yet without a single substantial biography to his name, he remains the least studied of the three successive premiers médecins who cared for Louis XIV during his personal reign. This thesis attempts to rectify this disparity, but not through the means of a traditional biography. Instead, it aims to shed greater light upon Vallot’s career as premier médecin, and his place in the world around him in this role, through an exploration of his interactions with contemporaries. The royal court of France, and the kingdom’s wider medical profession, provide the two main backdrops for this investigation. The relationships which Vallot sustained within these two environments are explored with the help of a broad range of source material, including personal correspondence, archival records from the king’s household and Vallot’s medical record for Louis XIV. Within the source material relating to the royal court, a picture emerges of an extremely prolific physician whose professional popularity contrasted with a distinct lack of social significance. Although this social shortcoming was exacerbated by a tumultuous relationship with the royal medical team, Vallot’s exchanges with some of the court’s most important ministers reveal the achievements he accomplished within another dynamic sphere of court life: patronage. In the kingdom’s medical profession, Vallot kept a measured distance from the heated discussions of his medical contemporaries working beyond the court. Behind this distance, however, lay ambitious plans to secure a uniquely authoritative voice within the medical world as premier médecin. Throughout this investigation attention is drawn to the emerging continuities that can be traced between Vallot’s experiences in the role of premier médecin, and those of his better-known professional successors.

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No description available.

No description available.