Paris City Councillors in the Sixteenth Century

"This book examines the character of the governing elite of sixteenth-century Paris a group that included some of the most important jurists, administrators, and intellectuals of the early modern French state and investigates the strategies employed by members of this group to promote and maintain their position in the city and in the monarchy. Focusing on the ninety men who held office as councillors of the Hôtel de Ville between 1535 and 1575 and on their families, Barbara Die-fendorf analyzes the ways in which the ambitions of this group were served by participation in civic affairs, career choices, matrimonial arrangements, and inheritance practices. The author combines the evidence of actual practice drawn from marriage con-tracts, property inventories, and other family papers with a solid understanding of administrative structures and customary law. She thereby gives us a clear picture of the mechanisms of social promotion and the active role played by the family in the hierarchical society of early modern France. By a synthesis of legal and social history Professor Diefendorf makes an important contribution to the growing literature on elites and the family in early modern times and furthers our understanding of a significant period in the creation of the French monarchy". -- dust jacket