The thesis outlines a systematic approach for the study of Narbonne. Chapter one presents a methodological analysis for an understanding of the city in Late Antiquity, formulating a tripartite distinction of territorial space on different planes of meaning: nature, containing references to geography and geology; custom, that incorporates meanings derived from archaeology, production and exchange; finally authority, that addresses educated texts of law, religion and power. This categorization is developed in chapters two to six. Chapter two examines the natural, geological evolution of Narbonne, together with the foundational descriptions of the city from Orosius, Hydatius, Olympiodorus and Philostorgius. Chapter three views the transformation of Narbonne from a city in a province of the Roman Empire to another context in a barbarian successor state. The chapter also sets out the part played by the port of Narbonne at the turn of the fourth century in the residence and travels of ascetics and Christian figures like Paulinus of Nola and Sulpicius Severus. Chapter four describes the topography of Narbonne in the fifth and sixth centuries, and the role of early Christianity, ending with a critical assessment of the archaeological research for the period. It also examines late antique archetypal narratives of the city. Chapters five and six assess the current historiography of Narbonne’s place in the development of the Visigothic kingdom, and argue for a new approach to the representation ofNarbonne in the sixth and seventh centuries. The thesis concludes that Narbonne was a regional centre for a territory that had its roots in the post-Roman settlement established in the Ostrogothic Interlude after 507, which eventually drew the city closer to the Merovingian kingdoms in the seventh century, away from any imagined unity with the Visigothic kingdom of Toledo.

Fashion merchants were acknowledged as the highest status trade and dynamic agents for change within the production and consumption of women’s clothing in the eighteenth century but their position in the nineteenth century has not previously been considered. This thesis examines how the trade evolved in Paris between 1795 and 1855 considering factors such as gender, finance and location in the context of political, economic and social change. The findings challenge the idea that significant change only occurred before 1789 or after 1860. Fashion merchants used novelty, luxury and taste to produce fashionable merchandise, particularly headgear, from a range of authentic and substitute materials that stimulated consumer demand across different social levels. Engaging with debates about gender and the public sphere, the investigation demonstrates that, although there were successful male merchants, women continued to dominate the sector. Married women did not retreat from business, instead their husbands could be helpmeets and the métier was often the focus of the family economy. Continuity was found in the use of credit in trade, the high status of the fashion merchant, the importance of reputation and the value of location and premises. Change was shown in production, sales and promotional strategies including advertising and the increasing importance of headwear to French industry was acknowledged by its inclusion in the industry exhibitions of 1851 and 1855.

This thesis examines the impact that the First World War had on French thinking about race and gender. It argues ideas about those two categories were strongly linked at the time. It argues that the often dramatic changes of the war were understood within a framework of pre-war ideas which helped to both determine and explain the behaviour of different sexes and different races during the conflict. These ideas were adaptable and sometimes contradictory which allowed them to be utilised to describe changing circumstances in ways that did not undermine traditional thinking. While there was uncertainty over the categories of gender and race during the war, it largely followed the pattern of pre-war debates and resulted in little more disruption to established ideas than those debates had.

From its inception, the French Wars of Religion was a European phenomenon. The internationality of the conflict is most clearly illustrated by the Protestant princes who engaged militarily in France between 1567 and 1569. Due to the historiographical convention of approaching the French Wars of Religion as a national event, studied almost entirely separate from the history of the German Reformation, its transnational dimension has largely been ignored or misinterpreted. Using ten German Protestant princes as a case study, this thesis investigates the variety of factors that shaped German understandings of the French Wars of Religion and by extension German involvement in France. The princes’ rich and international network of correspondence together with the many German-language pamphlets about the Wars in France provide an insight into the ways in which the conflict was explained, debated, and interpreted. Applying a transnational interpretive framework, this thesis unravels the complex interplay between the personal, local, national, and international influences that together formed an individual’s understanding of the Wars of Religion. These interpretations were rooted in the longstanding personal and cultural connections between France and the Rhineland and strongly influenced by French diplomacy and propaganda. Moreover, they were conditioned by one’s precise position in a number of key religious debates, most notably the question of Lutheran-Reformed relations. These understandings changed as a result of a number pivotal European events that took place in 1566 and 1567 and the conspiracy theories they inspired. This combination of influences created a spectrum of individual interpretations of the French Wars of Religion. The military campaigns of the years 1567-69, far from being motivated by political or financial opportunism, were the product of these individual interpretations.

This thesis examines the rhetorical and opportunistic strategies used by the Duchess of Châtillon, a seventeenth-century female aristocrat, to negotiate both the political and the diplomatic spheres of Louis XIV’s court. This work is based on her correspondence, most of which still remains unpublished. The analysis of these strategies reveals that it was possible for some women, through the use of informal means, to have influence in the male-dominated political arena.

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