- Email: [email protected]
After the black death: A social history of early modern Europe
244
Book Reviews
the nature of science. N. Jardine has performed a useful service to both historians philosophers of science by making the text available to a wider audience. William
and
R. Shea
Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin
After the Black Death: A Social History of Early Modern Europe, George Interdis~iplina~ Studies in History (Bloomin~on and Indianapolis: Press, 1986), xiv + 169 pp., $27.50, cloth; $9.95, paper.
Indiana
Huppert, University
After the Black Death is clearly designed for the introductory survey-courses on European history offered at American universities. It is a short, and highly readable, survey of Western European social history from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, written for people who possess little or no background in this field. The book discusses rural and urban life, family and community structure, social conflict, and religious beliefs, mainly through a series of case studies which describe in detail the experiences of one village, one town, or one family. In this way Huppert is able to introduce the reader to some of the most important local studies by leading scholars in this field-an apiritifwhich is so well-served that it is bound to be a stimulus to further reading in the specialized literature. Huppert seeks to identify and describe a system of social relations which he argues came into existence after the Black Death and was peculiar to Western Europe (in which he includes England). Heavily influenced by the Annales school, he seeks whenever possible to recreate the experiences of individual men and women, to get inside their minds, and understand their fears and hopes. Since he believes that this system of social relations was fairly generally established throughout Western Europe, he repeatedly uses the particular to illustrate what he suggests are more general traits and patterns. This method certainly has many advantages. For exampfe, at the beginning of the first chapter there is a wonderfully vivid description of the village of Sennely (near Orleans) in the seventeenth century, which will give even the most unimaginative undergraduate a flavour of what rural life was like at this time. The method does, however, have its limitations. First, the approach tends to obscure change over time. Huppert confesses that his chief purpose is ‘to single out those features of early modern society in Western Europe which changed so slowly that they may appear permanent’ (p. 150), and although he tries to draw our attention to important trends and developments, what emerges is nevertheless a predominantly static picture of Western European society between 1347 and 1789. Secondly, the book does not highlight sufficiently the importance of regional variations. Huppert’s main contrast is between rural and urban society. To be fair, he offers a warning in his preface concerning the fragility of generalisation in history, claiming that he does no more than say ‘here is how social groups coexisted in a city in Picardy’ or ‘this is what a revolt was like in Dauphin&’ (p, xiii), and occasionally Huppert draws attention to local variations. But all too often we are encouraged to close our eyes ‘to sharp variations of soil, climate, language, and religion’ and ‘listen only to the constants’(p. 9). Thus Sennely is offered in Chapter One as an example of a fairly typical village. Surely it would be more helpful to offer a typology of villages which could accommodate such variations, since we know, for example, that the experience of those who lived on clay soils could be very different from those who lived on the chalk? To give another illustration, Huppert begins his chapter on rebellion by informing us that there were some 450 rebellions in southwestern France between 1590 and 1715, and suggests that ‘No region of Western Europe was exempted from this pattern
Book Reviews
245
of chronic violence’ (p. 80). Yet most historians would agree that England did not fit this general pattern, and more insight could have been gained by contrasting the different experiences of England and France than by glossing over them. A third limitation is that Huppert pays minimal attention to the historiographical controversy surrounding the themes he explores. Some of the conclusions offered as accepted wisdom I felt were rather contentious, at least when their regional applicability was not clearly spelled out, For example, the ar~ment concerning the deep-seated lay hatred of the Catholic clergy (pp. 142-3) has been heavily criticized by some historians of the English Reformation, and it would have been instructive to show undergraduates how and why historians come to disagree in their interpretation of the evidence over issues such as these. Any short, introductory book, which covers a wide chronolo~c~ and geographical span, is bound to oversimplify, and it would be unduly severe to criticise on these grounds. It is legitimate, however, to evaluate the effectiveness of such a book as a teaching aid. How severely one weighs the advantages and limitations of Huppert’s book will depend largely on personal teaching strategies. It must be said that Huppert executes what he sets out to achieve extremely well, and although I find fault with the conceptual approach, he clearly has a rare gift for this type of exposition, for which he can only be congratulated and admired. Tim Harris Brown University
The Attraction of the Contrary, Walter E. Rex (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 251 pp., E27.50, $44.50. Many years ago, Felix Gaiffe, tired of the adulation of the French grandsikfe, satisfied himself by producing an Envers du grand sikcle, a collection of pieces embodying some of the subversive, disreputable elements of seventeenth-century French culture which had been swept under the carpet by bienpensant criticism. The impulse behind Professor Rex’s book is not dissimilar. He looks at eighteenth-century France with an eager eye for the oddities, revelling somewhat romantically in the earthiness of the underworld. Writing with easy sarcasm of the boredom induced by official culture, he highlights writers, dramatists, musicians and artists who cock a snook at the Academy, classical tragedy and decorum of all kinds. This, roughly speaking, is the ‘attraction of the contrary’, Sometimes he concentrates on work that is entirely ‘contrary’-a popular or disreputable piece such as the pornographic Portier des chartreux or Piron’s fairground monologue Arlequin Deucalion. Elsewhere, as in Rousseau and above all Diderot, both sides of an opposition are present at once; the appeal of such writers is precisely in movements of internal contradiction (Rousseau as both lover of sophisticated cufture and Genevan primitivist). Many of these essays are concerned with the performing arts, including opera and comic opera. Here the author’s main concern is to show how in theory and practice authors such as Piron, Mercier or Diderot worked towards what he calls the ‘demise of classical tragedy’-a demise which seems to him well deserved. There are other sections on prose fiction, including a rather forceful argument that the real appeal of Manun Lescaut lies not simply in the power of amorous passion over a decent young man, but in the more far-reaching desire (on the part of Des Grieux, but also Prevost) to reject all the norms of respectable society. Likewise Diderot’s nun is knowingly interpreted as less innocent than she herself (or her author) wants us to believe.
Book Reviews
the nature of science. N. Jardine has performed a useful service to both historians philosophers of science by making the text available to a wider audience. William
and
R. Shea
Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin
After the Black Death: A Social History of Early Modern Europe, George Interdis~iplina~ Studies in History (Bloomin~on and Indianapolis: Press, 1986), xiv + 169 pp., $27.50, cloth; $9.95, paper.
Indiana
Huppert, University
After the Black Death is clearly designed for the introductory survey-courses on European history offered at American universities. It is a short, and highly readable, survey of Western European social history from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, written for people who possess little or no background in this field. The book discusses rural and urban life, family and community structure, social conflict, and religious beliefs, mainly through a series of case studies which describe in detail the experiences of one village, one town, or one family. In this way Huppert is able to introduce the reader to some of the most important local studies by leading scholars in this field-an apiritifwhich is so well-served that it is bound to be a stimulus to further reading in the specialized literature. Huppert seeks to identify and describe a system of social relations which he argues came into existence after the Black Death and was peculiar to Western Europe (in which he includes England). Heavily influenced by the Annales school, he seeks whenever possible to recreate the experiences of individual men and women, to get inside their minds, and understand their fears and hopes. Since he believes that this system of social relations was fairly generally established throughout Western Europe, he repeatedly uses the particular to illustrate what he suggests are more general traits and patterns. This method certainly has many advantages. For exampfe, at the beginning of the first chapter there is a wonderfully vivid description of the village of Sennely (near Orleans) in the seventeenth century, which will give even the most unimaginative undergraduate a flavour of what rural life was like at this time. The method does, however, have its limitations. First, the approach tends to obscure change over time. Huppert confesses that his chief purpose is ‘to single out those features of early modern society in Western Europe which changed so slowly that they may appear permanent’ (p. 150), and although he tries to draw our attention to important trends and developments, what emerges is nevertheless a predominantly static picture of Western European society between 1347 and 1789. Secondly, the book does not highlight sufficiently the importance of regional variations. Huppert’s main contrast is between rural and urban society. To be fair, he offers a warning in his preface concerning the fragility of generalisation in history, claiming that he does no more than say ‘here is how social groups coexisted in a city in Picardy’ or ‘this is what a revolt was like in Dauphin&’ (p, xiii), and occasionally Huppert draws attention to local variations. But all too often we are encouraged to close our eyes ‘to sharp variations of soil, climate, language, and religion’ and ‘listen only to the constants’(p. 9). Thus Sennely is offered in Chapter One as an example of a fairly typical village. Surely it would be more helpful to offer a typology of villages which could accommodate such variations, since we know, for example, that the experience of those who lived on clay soils could be very different from those who lived on the chalk? To give another illustration, Huppert begins his chapter on rebellion by informing us that there were some 450 rebellions in southwestern France between 1590 and 1715, and suggests that ‘No region of Western Europe was exempted from this pattern
Book Reviews
245
of chronic violence’ (p. 80). Yet most historians would agree that England did not fit this general pattern, and more insight could have been gained by contrasting the different experiences of England and France than by glossing over them. A third limitation is that Huppert pays minimal attention to the historiographical controversy surrounding the themes he explores. Some of the conclusions offered as accepted wisdom I felt were rather contentious, at least when their regional applicability was not clearly spelled out, For example, the ar~ment concerning the deep-seated lay hatred of the Catholic clergy (pp. 142-3) has been heavily criticized by some historians of the English Reformation, and it would have been instructive to show undergraduates how and why historians come to disagree in their interpretation of the evidence over issues such as these. Any short, introductory book, which covers a wide chronolo~c~ and geographical span, is bound to oversimplify, and it would be unduly severe to criticise on these grounds. It is legitimate, however, to evaluate the effectiveness of such a book as a teaching aid. How severely one weighs the advantages and limitations of Huppert’s book will depend largely on personal teaching strategies. It must be said that Huppert executes what he sets out to achieve extremely well, and although I find fault with the conceptual approach, he clearly has a rare gift for this type of exposition, for which he can only be congratulated and admired. Tim Harris Brown University
The Attraction of the Contrary, Walter E. Rex (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 251 pp., E27.50, $44.50. Many years ago, Felix Gaiffe, tired of the adulation of the French grandsikfe, satisfied himself by producing an Envers du grand sikcle, a collection of pieces embodying some of the subversive, disreputable elements of seventeenth-century French culture which had been swept under the carpet by bienpensant criticism. The impulse behind Professor Rex’s book is not dissimilar. He looks at eighteenth-century France with an eager eye for the oddities, revelling somewhat romantically in the earthiness of the underworld. Writing with easy sarcasm of the boredom induced by official culture, he highlights writers, dramatists, musicians and artists who cock a snook at the Academy, classical tragedy and decorum of all kinds. This, roughly speaking, is the ‘attraction of the contrary’, Sometimes he concentrates on work that is entirely ‘contrary’-a popular or disreputable piece such as the pornographic Portier des chartreux or Piron’s fairground monologue Arlequin Deucalion. Elsewhere, as in Rousseau and above all Diderot, both sides of an opposition are present at once; the appeal of such writers is precisely in movements of internal contradiction (Rousseau as both lover of sophisticated cufture and Genevan primitivist). Many of these essays are concerned with the performing arts, including opera and comic opera. Here the author’s main concern is to show how in theory and practice authors such as Piron, Mercier or Diderot worked towards what he calls the ‘demise of classical tragedy’-a demise which seems to him well deserved. There are other sections on prose fiction, including a rather forceful argument that the real appeal of Manun Lescaut lies not simply in the power of amorous passion over a decent young man, but in the more far-reaching desire (on the part of Des Grieux, but also Prevost) to reject all the norms of respectable society. Likewise Diderot’s nun is knowingly interpreted as less innocent than she herself (or her author) wants us to believe.