Comparing Davis and Huppert on early modern French rural society

France

Rural Society in Early Modern France

The main purpose of this report is to demonstrate my ability to first understand and then analyze historical works. The historical works for this assignment each focused on the rural society of early modern French times. The report's second purpose is to compare how the two authors present French rural society in "The Return of Martin Guerre" by Natalie Zemon Davis and "After the Black Death: A Social History of Early Modern Europe" by George Huppert.

The report uses comparison to see how the two authors emphasize similar features and traits of the rural world and where each authors show important differences in their works. Each author was attempting to present their version and characteristics of early modern French rural society. Each placed different emphasis on the essential traits of family life and marriage for the peasantry and how peasants were affected by the legal system of the time. And finally, the report narrows in on Natalie Zemon Davis's work to see how convincing she was while making her case regarding rural life. Davis' ability to use specific evidence helps bolster her arguments.

Both authors seem well read on the topic of the rural society of early modern France so I have tried to give my opinion on how important a contribution of these works are for us in modern times to understand the lives of the poor in the rural settings of France.

Information Availability

Authentic information regarding the early modern rural society is not easy to come by. The reasoning for this fact is that throughout history, actual accounts of events and personal lives is usually recorded in written form and historians just interpret what they find. "How do historians discover such things about anyone in the past? We look at letters and diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, family histories. We look at literary sources -- plays, lyric poems and stories - which, whatever the relation to the real lives of specific people, show us sentiment and reactions authors consider plausible for a given period." (Davis 1-2)

However, the poor of the early modern French society were usually illiterate and did not get detailed historical recognition from the oligarchy. Davis gathered her information from an account of a legal magistrate who retold a story about a particular case. Davis was able to expand upon the information to present the story in a novel layout. Huppert's work appeared to be based more on the views of the upper class' interpretation of the peasantry since the rich were the ones who recorded history.

Through these works, both authors provide a significant level of insight into the life of the individual peasantry including migration, landscape, marriage, family obligation, health, crime and the criminal justice system and even the politics of old France. The styles and approach to presenting the information by the authors was very different. Huppert uses a strict presentation as though he has lots of information and does not wish to waste any time while presenting it. He gets right to the point so to speak. Davis, on the other hand, uses a very colorful storyline where characters are developed and brought to life. The historical facts are presented as a part of the story and often are can overlooked as facts and seen simply as storyline filler.

Marriage

Although Huppert does not delve into this subject directly, it can be assumed from the fact that both authors support the village as an important aspect of rural life; it can be assumed that family was a necessary subset of the village. Life was precious in the times of old France in the sense that the family unit was an intricate part of rural society.

Through interpretation of Davis' work, young men and women were married solely to consummate and bear children. Although there were exceptions, the concepts of love and other romantic notions in a relationship in rural France were most likely luxuries for the urban rich. The need for strong workers was apparent so great stature was given to men and women who bore children. It can also be assumed that male children were thought to be more important to society than women due to the male dominated mentality of the era.

The legal system at the time-based many of its laws on the fact that women were dependent on men for the good of society. Although still active in the social order if unwed, women seemed to be almost a burden to the workings of the societal base. "Neither wife nor widow, she was under the same roof with her mother again. Neither wife nor widow, she had to face the other village women at the mill, the well, the tile works and at the harvest." (Davis, 33)

Legal system

The authors seem to have differing opinions when it comes to the legal system. In this remote time that was dominated by family obligations, official legal teams or police were rarely used to resolve disputes in the life of rural communities. Each of these works considers the economy and the notion of land equating to wealth in early modern France.

The authors also each touched upon the legal system of the time to examine the behavior, attitudes, and environment of the inhabitants. Davis points out that the families of the rural community in her story frequented the court system. "The court of Rieux was certainly not unknown to the families of Artigat." (Davis, 62)

But in Huppert's version of the times, one gets the flavor that only the rich frequent the courts and the poor were left with no challenge. Huppert also seems to be implying that during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, once a person was a land owner, that stature in the community led to certain legal rights and an elevation of social class.

When the legal system did intervene it left a measurable trail for historians to use to document occurrences of the times. It was almost a crime to be poor in early modern European society. "We know that only free men were admitted to membership in the urban commune, and we speak of personal freedom and city life in the same breath." (Huppert, 67) Like Huppert, Davis concurs that there was a benefit to landownership. When Davis describes the trial in her story, she points out that Importance of Davis' work

The more things change the more things stay the same. The story, "The Return of Martin Guerre" by Natalie Zemon Davis, is a well written historical fiction that definitely makes the author's case. The story provides insights into many facets of early modern French society. She directly touched upon the legal process of the time, the societal intricacies of the rural community, expectations of the female inhabitant, and many subjects that allow the reader to envision early modern French life. Indirectly there are other insights into the political nuances such as France's boarder disputes with Spain, conscription and even medical capabilities of the time as the subject of the story survives amputation and war.

Another insight is that we humans repeat history over and over. One example of this phenomena can demonstrated by how we in the twenty-first century fear being the victim of personality theft as was the case in Davis' story. I feel she did an excellent job of taking the historical facts and working them into the story and then modernizing the thought process so the story becomes timeless. Davis' thoughts and beliefs were created from historical fact and that made the plot enjoyable.

This type of work is very important in the sense that it makes learning history more interesting and enjoyable. Understanding that the legal system throughout history was a viable source for authors and historians never made it any easier to obtain facts or those facts easier to understand. Throughout history the victor held the pen. In other words, to the victor go the history books instead of the spoils. Davis, in her approach, simplified both the legal process, early modern French life and societal intricacies of peasantry even though the it was a world for the rich and they dictated historical entries.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the main purpose of this report was to first demonstrate my ability to understand and analyze historical works and secondly to compare how the authors Natalie Zemon Davis and George Huppert presented rural society of early modern day France. The report used comparison as a tool to show how the two authors emphasized similar features and traits of the rural society but each author made important distinctions in their works. The authors attempted to present their version of the characteristics of early modern French rural society members by writing about the essential traits of family life, peasantry and how those individuals could be affected by the legal system of the time. The report also honed in on Natalie Zemon Davis to see how convincing her case was in regard to rural life and what explicit evidence she used to bolster her argument. It was apparent that both authors were well read on the topic of rural society in early modern France and I provided my interpretation of how important a contribution these books make in our understanding of the lives of the poor in the early modern French society.