The Ranums' Panat Times

This syllabus was used for my course entitled

French Government in Thought and Practice 1559-1648

[A questionnaire:] History 321

Name

Class

Advanced History Courses

Foreign Languages

Briefly, honestly, why did you sign up for this course?

Selection for your personal file

Historical Person

Part of Paris

Province

Are there other thoughts that you would like to share with me at this point? If so, please put them down.

History 321 French Government in Thought and Practice, 1559-1648

The Johns Hopkins University Professor Ranum

Ms. Brown

Office hours: 3-4 Monday

11-12 Thursday and by appointment

Government is a strong, general word. If we think about it, read, and reflect, almost every aspect of French history in the Early Modern period may be learned by working out what government was in a century of civil war, religious intensity, humanism, and state-building.

* * * * *

Every student in the course is expected to constitute a file of information, about a person, a part of Paris, and a province, that is susceptible of giving its creator a specific expertise, and a glimpse at the complexity of the Early Modern French identity.

The file should become the repository for personal curiosity and reflection on reading sources, and studying etchings and paintings, housing, field systems, castles, churches, and markets. I will personally wish to inspect each file in the last week of the course. It will be your responsibility to select some historical person, either the Right Bank, Left Bank, or Cite of Paris, and a province, for intensive scrutiny. Begin by reading about these in large reference works, such as the Encyclopedia Britannica (11th ed. is superior to any later one for historical topics) and general works in the collection on French history on level B of the Eisenhower Library. At some point in the semester a copy of Moreri could be put on reserve in Special Collections for those who wish to learn about their subjects from a nearly contemporary source in French.

Do not just photocopy articles and illustrations–which facilitates short-circuited information–that is it goes from paper to paper without storage and reflection in the brain. Some will want to keep their "files" in a computer. Be sure to keep print outs so that you will be able to read and compare materials side by side. Do pay special attention to material from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but facts and impressions from earlier and later centuries may be included. Many things that you will want to know are almost "structural," in that they exist over long periods of time. The geneology of your historical person to study is not at all unlike the geography and topography of the province and part of Paris that you will study. Eventually, your file should serve as a resource for your writing in this course, and as an encouragement to want to visit the places with which you have become familiar.

* * * * *

There will be two papers in this course, and a final examination. The first paper would be 3 pages in length, and it should answer one or the other of the following questions:

1. What are the "marks" of sovereignty in Bodin?

2. For Botero, are compact states more lasting than dispersed states? If so, why?

Photocopies of these materials will be circulated if the enrollment in the course makes using the Reserve Room copies a hardship. The purpose of this paper is to discern which students still have difficulty in analyzing a "text" and stating their findings in brief, ordered sentences that are cogent to the topic. This paper is called the propadeutic paper; it will be due in class at the end of the third week.

The second paper should be 10-12 pages in length. It will be due at the end of classes. Topics will be given at about mid-term.

Week I: France and Frenchness in the Reign of Henry II
J.H.M. Salmon, Society in Crisis..., chapters 3 and 4
B. Diefendorf, Beneath the Cross..., introduction and chapters 1 and 2

II: France in a European Context
G. Mattingly, The Armada

III (Sept. 21): The Monarchy, Myths, Claims, and Powers
W.F. Church, Constitutional Thought in Sixteenth-Century France, chapter III (pp. 74-178)

IV: Religious Reform, the Churches, the State, and Civil War
Diefendorf, chapters 3-5

V: Political Thought in Ancient, Juridical, and Biblical Frameworks
J. Franklin, ed., Constituionalism and Resistance in the Sixteenth Century, introduction Hotman, Francogallia
J. Franklin, Jean Bodin, chapters 4 and 7

VI: Understanding Collective Violence in Paris during the Civil War
N.Z. Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, chapter 6
Diefendorf, chapters 6 and 10, and conclusion

VII: Montaigne's Politics and Morals
The Essays (Frame translation), specific portions to be assigned after Ranum has reread certain passages and taken the latest scholarship into account

VIII: Henry IV and the State
O. Ranum, Paris in the Age of Absolutism, chapters IV-V

IX: Social and Environmental Engineering
Laffemas (selections to be distributed in class)
A. Lublinskaya, French Absolutism, the Crucial Phase..., chapter III

X: Henry's Assassination, and the problem of Regency Government
R. Mousnier, The Assassination of Henry IV, part I, chapter I of part II

XI: The Estates General of 1614
J.M. Hayden, The Estates General of 1614, chapters 6, 7, and 10

XII: Philosophical and Theatrical Relations with Government, the 1630s
Descartes, The Discourse on Method
Corneille, The Cid (selections to be distributed in class)

XIII: Louis the Just and Richelieu
Richelieu, The Political Testament (H.B. Hill introduction and text)
L. Moote, Louis the Juste, chapters 10-11

XIV: Richelieu and the European War
J.H. Elliott, Richelieu and Olivares