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The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the principal challenges to royal authority and the means by which royal authority was maintained in France during the first War of Religion (1561-1563). The latter half of the sixteenth century was a critical period for the French monarchy. Great noble families attempted to re-establish their feudal power at the expense of the crown. Francis II and Charles IX, kings who were merely boys, succeeded strong monarchs on the throne. The kingdom was impoverished by foreign wars and overrun by veteran soldiers, ill-absorbed into civil life. Calvinism spread rapidly and became not only a religious but a political movement drawing ideological and organizational support from Geneva. The powerful Hapsburg monarch, Philip II, watched affairs in France with a suspicious eye and frequently manipulated matters affecting the French court. Not only were his border territories in the Pyrenees threatened but the Spanish king rightly feared that religious division in France would have repercussions in his rich low country territories. The province of Guyenne was chosen as a setting for this study because it was the province of the first prince of the blood, it was close to the Spanish kingdom, it had a history of concern for local prerogatives, and it had a large number of Huguenot believers and congregations. Not least among the reasons for choosing Guyenne in which to study royal government was the availability of abundant documentary sources. This thesis is based primarily upon the examination of memoirs and correspondence. Most important of the memoirs are those of Blaise de Monluc, lieutenant-general of Guyenne. The critical edition of these together with a biography and a study of the historical accuracy and significance of Monluc Commentaires have been prepared by Professor Paul Courteault. Among the documents available is the extensive correspondence of Catherine de Medicis, the letters of Antoine de Bourbon, those of Monluc, and many letters of Charles IX and of provincial officers. Royal government in France was not based on a financial, administrative or military foundation adequate for the king to force his will upon his subjects. Interest groups allied to the king had popularized an ideology of royal authority which served royal interests. Personal contact with his subjects, especially with the nobility enhanced royal authority. The basis of royal government, however, was the goodwill and co-operation of individuals in positions of influence. King Charles IX and Catherine de Medicis, the queen mother, constantly sought to gain and maintain such goodwill and support. They granted offices and honours which carried with them the opportunity of professional advancement and personal enrichment. An extensive correspondence tended to maintain their knowledge of affairs throughout the kingdom and their influence over their subjects. Nevertheless they had to balance individual noble against noble, faction against faction, Parlement against governor in constant negotiation to maintain royal authority. The identification of the personnel who represented the king in Guyenne reveals ways in which provincial resources could be mobilized for the crown and against the crown. In a period of civil war the military organization of the royal army within the province was of critical importance particularly when the army was largely local. Local notables appointed officers, recruited soldiers and commanded the forces. Just as important to the crown were the financial institutions of the province. As with the military institutions, it is essential to determine the ways in which those institutions facilitated royal government and the ways in which they could be made to serve the particular interests of individuals and groups other than the crown. The designation "absolute" as applied to the sixteenth-century French monarchy must be somewhat qualified as a result of an examination of the functioning of local and provincial institutions: voluntary (leagues), representative (Estates) and appointed (Parlement). It is to the nature of that monarchy that the present study is addressed. The province of Guyenne and the first years of civil war provide the historical setting. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

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This study uses the ‘duchies' of Burgundy and Alemannia as case studies for an examination of the nature and causes of political change in the five decades after the death in 888 of the Emperor Charles the Fat ended the Carolingian monopoly on kingship in the Frankish realms. Existing narratives of this period posit discontinuity between the pre- and post-888 political worlds and define the status of dukes in opposition to royal power as the manifestation of either regional communal identity or self-centred aristocratic greed. Close examination of Burgundy and Alemannia indicates that such approaches are invalid, and that the fundaments of the Carolingian system persisted in the ideology and practice of politics after 888: a desire for the control over land and religious establishments, juxtaposed with a deep-seated belief in the centrality of the kingship to the political order. Dukedoms emerged in both regions not as a result of deep-rooted social forces but as short-term responses by magnates to crises at the centre. The perception that the dukedom was an essential form of political organization failed to take root in either territory prior to 940. Although the status of the dukedoms ultimately developed in different ways in the two kingdoms, it is suggested that the root causes of this are best sought in high politics itself.

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This thesis re-evaluates the chronology of Lower Normandy’s integration into the duchy growing around Rouen from the tenth century onwards. The introduction argues that modern accounts of Normandy’s development remain dependent on the works of Dudo of Saint-Quentin and Flodoard of Rheims. Difficulties with these authors and alternative approaches to Normandy’s early history are identified. It is argued that regional distinctions throughout the later duchy hindered efforts to bring about political cohesion. Chapters One and Two identify the ninth-century Breton occupation and early tenth-century Scandinavian settlement of Lower Normandy as the twin sources of ongoing regional divisions. The early dukes’ interest in and influence over the west are also called into question. Chapters Three and Four instead posit that ducal interest in Lower Normandy was a product of the late tenth century, with direct intervention following in the favourable circumstances of the early eleventh century. Ducal success in this period depended upon the co-operation of regional aristocrats and ecclesiastical institutions and continuing constraints on Rouen’s influence and authority are emphasised. Chapter Five argues that Robert the Magnificent was a more assertive ruler, who actively strengthened ducal authority in Lower Normandy in spite of renewed opposition. Chapter Six considers how rebellion against William the Conqueror in 1047 reveals growing local interest in the conduct of ducal government. Victory allowed William to consolidate ducal authority in Lower Normandy, encouraging further expansion beyond its borders. Local landholders, however, resultantly received little direct ducal patronage, including scant reward in the post-Conquest settlement of England. In conclusion, while Lower Normandy had been brought firmly under ducal control by 1087, it is argued that it was only under William’s son, Henry I, that the region’s aristocrats acquired any major influence over ducal policy and secured an equal position within the wider Anglo-Norman nobility.

Removed from its artistic origins in the French avant-garde during the interwar period, the European based group known as the situationist international is often represented as being solely occupied with politics to the exclusion of all else, particularly art and aesthetics. In what follows I argue that throughout the sixties the anti-aesthetic position was actually the governing model in France obliging the avant-garde to adjust their strategies accordingly. Artists and artists' collectives that placed politics before aesthetics were the norm, enjoying widespread popularity and recognition from both the public and the French State. These overtly partisan groups and individuals sapped art of the power it had enjoyed in the fifties as a venue removed, or at least distanced from, formal politics. In response, the situationists officially rejected the art world, turning to the popular and vernacular culture of the streets in an attempt to get beyond both classical aesthetic principals and the overt propagandistic objectives of groups such as le Salon de la jeunePeinture. Turning to the climactic moment of 1968 I track the ways in which these debates informed the posters and graffiti which marked the unfinished revolution, sorting out the various aesthetic positions and political persuasions that dominated the events. My thesis contends that the situationists were not anti-aesthetic, that they simply advocated a different kind of aesthetics: one that rejected traditional notions of beauty for the more active and open concept of poiesis or poetry. Beyond words on a page, this notion implied art as a way of life, emphasizing production, creation, formation and action and can be traced back to the groups prewar origins in the Dada and surrealist movements. Moreover, this concept of poetry was not adverse to issues of form being highly dependent on the materiality and physicality of the urban centre, specifically the streets. Finally my conclusion expands upon the similarities between this notion of poetry and the 17th century understanding of beauty, the latter concept being associated with a subtle criticality and strategic wit. It was this interpretation of beauty that defined and produced the art of 1968.