V. THE SAME METHOD USED FOR FRANCE

 

SIMILAR CAUSES BRING SIMILAR RESULTS

Non-mechanized agriculture brings the same kind of ruler, warrior and conflict when economic growth destabilized the status quo. 

Les très riches heures du duc de Berry / zoom

Traditional farm workers, Ruanda / zoom

*    *

Pinterest, no reference but the classic model

Westphalia, 15th century / zoom

*    *

Kanem cavalry, Black History Studies / zoom

Leiden University Library, 1337 / zoom

In brief

• Similar economies, similar cycles of change

• Economic growth and the "Wars of Religion"

• Absolute Monarchy takes the reins

• Louis XIV, the ultimate anti-capitalist

*     *     *   

Next,

V.I.

Similar economies, similar cycles of change

V.1. SIMILAR ECONOMIES, SIMILAR CYCLES OF CHANGE

NON-MECHANIZED AGRICULTURE IS THE FOUNDATION OF PRE-COLONIAL AFRICAN AND PRE-INDUSTRIAL FRENCH SOCIETIES

Zoom

Economic growth brings cycles of opposition between seekers of gain and authorities who can no longer control them. The victory of the new forces brings an expansion of trade and production, and stronger authority to master them.

• In Djimini, a fight between Muslim traders and animist farmers ends with an economically transformative innovation (acceptance of an infinitely divisible currency) and a stronger chieftaincy to prevent further change.

• In France, "wars of religion" pit Catholics whose customs limit profit against budding Protestant capitalists who challenge them. They end with a more muscular kingship that lets the Protestants continue their practices but dominates them.  

Le massacre de la Saint-Bartholemy (detail) by François Dubois, toward 1580 / zoom 

     Henry IV entre à Paris le 24 mars 1594 by Francois Gérard / zoom

Growth that more robust authority limits continues in both societies:

• In Djimini the new market of Bokhola prospers, others spring up, more powerful traders arrive and a new class of animist commercial producers appears. The Bokhala chief keeps them in check.

• En France trade and production expand but the stronger Bourbon monarchy controls them. Monuments and a new urban design are signs of its power. 

Conflict returns. 

• Djimini animists and petty traders resist the new long-distance merchants and  commercial producers. A conqueror subdues them and establishes a state based on slave-based agriculture for the growing markets.

      Senufo horseman

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carreau_m%C3%A9di%C3%A9val_Laon_030208_01.jpg

• In France, the Bourbons tolerate Protestants and their activities until they menace Catholics' economic predominance. Their forced conversions are superficial but force their acceptance of traditional barriers to profit.

The cycles end in Djimini when the European conquerors liberate the labor force, and in France when the Revolutions of 1789-1795 and 1830 suppress nobles' control of the State and let capitalism fly. 

*    *

These pages have suggested 

another view of African history.

Now they do the same for France.

• Growth breaks loose 

• Economic growth and the "Wars of Religion"

• Absolute Monarchy takes control

• Louis XIV, anti-capitalist

*      *      *

Next,
V.1.

 Growth breaks loose 

V.2. GROWTH BREAKS LOOSE

FROM ABOUT 1480 EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES BRING EXPONENTIAL GROWTH

Capitalism destabilizes the backwater that borders the Atlantic, with a speed that its rudimentary states cannot contain.

*    *

Behind each vessel is a whole chain of production, like that

which trans-Saharan exchanges bring the African savannah.

Storm at Sea by Pieter Breughel the Elder, toward 1610 / zoom

Ship-building requires planks, sails, nails, ropes, tar, supplies, barrels like the one that has fallen into the sea. They in turn need warehouses, wagons, tools, donkeys, horses... .

Those chains of production have been developing since about the year 1000, especially around the Mediterranean. Growth in the rest of Europe has been gradual.

Now proximity to the Atlantic means that trade and production on the borders of the mid-Atlantic expands with unprecedented speed (Spain is an exception). 

*     *

The new revenues threaten the nobles, but their social system absorbs many of the most dynamic newcomers: 

• The owner of the medieval castle in the background could well be a former merchant, who has bought land to join a caste that he reveres. 

Springtime by Pieter Breugel the Younger, about 1600 / zoom (with a traditional analysis in French)

• Some lands let the owner automatically acquire a title. Or owning them helps marry a daughter to an impoverished noble, meaning one's grandchildren will be nobles (with somewhat tarnished escutcheons). 

The choice is not mercantile. Continuing business activities means losing noble status, and the income from the land diminishes with inflation.

*     *

Nobles' prestige leads the newly-rich 

to spend gains instead of investing them. 

*     *     *

Next, 

V.3. 

Economic growth and the "Wars of Religion"

V.3. ECONOMIC GROWTH AND THE "WARS OF RELIGION"

5.3.GROWTH & "WARS OF RELIGION"

WHEN ALL ASPECTS OF DAILY LIFE ARE SACRED,

CONFLICT IS TOO

France's 16th-century civil wars are said due to "fanaticism," a truism that skips their underlying cause.

(In 1562-98)

                  Sixteenth-century engraving, private collection

Main source: Jules Michelet's Renaissance an Reformation (1860's)

In brief

• Violence that has nothing to do with religion

• The "season" of Protestant massacre

• Catholic communities where people intertwine 

• The traditional faith puts brakes on gain

• The new faith shatters them

 *      *     * 

Next,

5.3.1. 

Violence that has nothing to do with religion

5.3.1. VIOLENCE THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RELIGION

GLORIFYING BRUTALITY PRECEDES THOSE WARS

Medieval painting can be violent but it does not linger over sadistic details.

     Martyrdom of Saint Denis (detail) by Henri Bellechose, toward 1400 /  zoom

A century later:

   

Detail of ceramic at the Renaissance Museum / Claude Abron

*    *

As well:

• Evoking antiquity makes this glacial work still more nightmarish: 

 

The Massacres of the Triumvirs by Antoine Caron, 1566 / zoom 

 

• A combat that has nothing to do with the subject:

Claude Abron

• A chronicler casually remarks there were "many killed and wounded..." during the tournament to celebrate the birth of a prince (in 1518).

-- François Ier by Emmanuel Bourassin, 1997, p.75

• Nobles wear coats of mail under their doublets, even at the Louvre. 

-- Letter of Henri IV, 1573

• A platter shows a beheading:

Galerie Franck Baptiste

7 quai Voltaire, Paris 7e

The Wars of Religion justify and worsen violence,

 but do not cause it.

*     *     * 

Next: 

5.3.2.

The "season" of Protestant massacre

5.3.2. THE "SEASON" OF PROTESTANT MASSACRE

THE SAINT BARTHOLEMEW'S DAY MASSACRE STARTS IN PARIS AND FOR THREE MONTHS CONTINUES IN OTHER FRENCH TOWNS 

-- "Season:" term of Jules Michelet

It starts in the night of August 23, 1572. 

To play off noble clans, queen Catherine de Medici incites the shooting of the Protestant leader to blame the dominant Catholic clan and incite Protestant revenge. He is wounded. 

• The Catholic leader orders his thugs to storm the house where he is recovering. They attack him and throw his body out of the window.

Engraving of the time

• City authorities have been told that an assassination is planned and to summon a militia to maintain order. But when church bells toll to announce the fait accompli, it joins the killers and soon, many ordinary Catholics join in.

-- Le massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy by Philippe Erlanger, 1960, the classic study 

 The Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre by François Dubois, 1572 / zoom

The queen

 

The armies attract the same kind of men and both sides commit atrocities in the countryside.

"Soldiers' Feast" (detail), tapestry, Renaissance museum, museum publication

Soldiers are mercenaries or pillagers, men cut off from the land and its rules. A rape is happening in the background.

But urban victims are mainly Protestant. 

A list of commoner victims of the massacre shows that they were "shoemakers, bookbinders, hatmakers, weavers, pin-makers, armor-makers, barrel makers, watchmakers, goldsmiths, furniture makers, gilders, button-makers, hardware makers etc."

-- The 16th Century by Jules Michelet, 1833

When Louis XIV demanded that Protestants convert (in 1684), 50,000 families emigrated. Voltaire described them here.

*     *

• Detour: The tolling bells of Saint-Gervais, the royal church opposite the Louvre palace, set off the killings.

 

Zoom

• The city's military transformation in the 1850's had slated it for destruction, as were all the medieval churches in the turbulent central city. The man in charge (the Baron Haussmann), saved it: A Protestant, he did not want to be faulted for taking revenge. 

*   *

Blood lust, plunder and score-settling leads to striking Catholics too, but less often and later.

Why were Protestants so hated?

*    *    *

Next,

5.3.3.

 Catholic communities where people intertwine