Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1983

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

History

Major Professor

Sarah R. Blanshei

Committee Members

Michael J. McDonald, Thomas Barnett-Robisheaux

Abstract

The influence of war on the population and wealth structure of one early modern city is the major focus of this study. The wars chosen were the French Wars of Religion, local level, they have been examined less extensively than These struggles were selected because, at the have other major post-Reformation conflicts. Bourges was selected as the city for this study owing to the frequency and variety of its war-related experiences and the abundance of its archival sources. Those sources used most extensively are the minutes and correspondence of the city council, the municipal accounts, and, most important, two fiscal censuses.

Chapter I briefly discusses some of the problems involved in traditional approaches to the study of war's influence on early modern society, pointing out the value of using the methods of the new social history for exploring Chapter II surveys Bourges's economic life before the religious wars, focusing particularly on the changing fortunes of the city's important woolens industry.

In Chapter III, the Calvinist movement in Bourges is discussed as it developed and waned during the course of Chapter IV describes the war-related this topic. the religious wars. violence affecting the city through the 1580's, examining the most persistent and serious problems stemming from the War's influence on Bourges's commercial and fiscal life is examined and assessed by analyzing municipal receipts and expenditures between the years 1560 and 1590.

In Chapters V and VI, changes occurring in the city's population and wealth structure are studied by analyzing tax rolls dating from 1557 and 1586. War’s role in effecting these changes is discussed and assessed in relation to the role of other influences, particularly plague and long-range economic change. The analysis reveals that war did cause Bourges's population to decline and that losses were most severe among groups occupying the margins—both topographical and socioeconomic—of urban society. More over, the wars helped to alter slightly the distribution of Bourges's wealth, although no significant socioeconomic change occurred in the city. The study concludes that, in the long run, war's influence was greater in helping to reinforce long-range structural changes in Bourges's economic life than in making significant alterations in the city's demographic or socioeconomic structure.

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