http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/140111386

War, noblesse and identity in early modern Champagne: A study of the Recherche de la noblesse de Champagne (1673)

The Recherche de la noblesse de Champagne (1673), one of many recherches de la noblesse carried out by the French monarchy throughout France in the late medieval and early modern periods, provides a public record of the lives of the nobility of this frontier region. Ostensibly a means to return faux nobles to the tax rolls, the recherches de la noblesse also had a social function. Contemporary treatises on nobility in France make it clear that the acquisition and maintenance of nobility required a sustained public display of character and social value; this thesis argues that, in this cultural and ideological context, the recherches de la noblesse served as a means by which an individual noble or lineage could craft and promote a particular social identity. By chronicling the lives of individuals and families whose claims to noblesse were successful, the published genealogies and documentary evidence provide insight into the public discourse on the nature of nobility and noble identity in Champagne. Using the multi-generational evidence supplied by the 507 families included in the published findings of the Recherche de la noblesse de Champagne (1673), this thesis shows how war shaped the definition, acquisition and maintenance of noblesse in this region. It reveals that, far from rejecting traditional ideas about the role military service and activity played in determining noble status, the majority of Champagne's nobles sought to fashion an identity that reflected their professional and cultural dedication to the conduct of war.

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