Family Model and Mystical Body: Witnessing Gender through Political Metaphor in the Early Modern Nation-State

Abstract

FRANCE BEFORE SUNRISE: TWO POLITICAL THEORIES MEET The sixteenth century in France was a “constitutional moment”—a time when political theorists and jurists articulated a full and rich iteration of the value of constitutionalism and legal-parliamentary authority in relation to the monarch. It was also a moment to “witness” in many senses. It was a time to witness history—Henri II died in a jousting match, only to be followed by three degenerate sons who died in short succession; Catherine de Medici incited the hatred of rival factions; and thousands of Huguenots were massacred in Paris on St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1572. It was also a time of witnessing in a religious sense, as the Wars of Religion tore France apart and the powerful Catholic Ligue targeted the French Calvinists; and it was an instance when witnessing gained new associations related to a striking growth in France’s judicial infrastructure caused by the sale of new offices. By the end of the century, this tremendous political and social instability resulted in the development of a different perspective on political organization and absolutist theory came into circulation, bringing with it a significantly different sense of witnessing. During the first half of the seventeenth century these two political theories vied for the right to define the terms of engagement. For women, this battle between political perspectives was especially important. Each theory, constitutionalism and absolutism, represented a distinct vision of sovereignty—the former emphasized the need for strong judicial governance and the latter the need for a strong monarch—and affected whether women witnessed in a religious sense or in a legal one, as rightsholders and members of the political community. Framing the theoretical conversation about sovereignty were two distinct political positions regarding the nature of kingship and what—if