Noble Income, Inflation, and the Wars of Religion in France

Abstract

IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY, Augustin Thierry argued in his famous Essai sur 1'histoire de la formation et des progres du tiers etat that, from revival of free municipalities in twelfth century until meeting of Estates General in 1789, French third estate followed a simple and regular course in accordance with consistent plan that led to triumph of its ally, absolute monarchy, and ultimately to union of three orders in June 1789. At that point the family became complete, and for a moment French appeared to have become a united nation. Thierry gave clergy a nod and credited nobility with chivalry and military valor. They knew how to die, he generously asserted,' but, as dying is an art that can be practiced but once, he did not assign them a very large role in determining historical process. Although Thierry insisted that bourgeoisie was but one segment of third estate, Marxist and non-Marxist historians alike soon began to depict France from twelfth century to Revolution as marking rise of middle class and a corresponding decline of nobility. That it took middle class so many centuries to rise and nobility such a long time to die should have aroused suspicions of perceptive historians. Nevertheless, when A. F. Pollard delivered his lectures entitled Factors in Modem History at beginning of twentieth century, he incorporated all of traditional cliches. With growth of commerce and industry, he argued, middle class emerged and made its contribution to establishment of new monarchy, founding of British Empire, and nearly everything else that he regarded as good. Where you had no middle class, you had no Renaissance and no Reformation, he confidently proclaimed.2 At same time decline of manorial system, invention of gunpowder, growth of nationalism, emergence of absolute monarchies, and so on led to decline of nobility.