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- Title
Addressing "La Ville des Dieux": Entry Ceremonies and Urban Audiences in Seventeenth-Century Dijon.
- Authors
Breen, Michael P.
- Abstract
This article re-examines the early modern "entrée," a ceremony staged by towns to welcome monarchs and princes. In contrast with the usual interpretation of "entrées" as "state ceremonials" that articulated the relationship between prince and city, I argue that "entrées" were also local political rituals used by municipal elites to negotiate their complex and unstable relationships with the city's middling and popular classes. Through an analysis of two "entrées" into seventeenth-century Dijon, this article shows how the notables of Dijon's city government used "entrées" to reinforce vertical ties with artisans, shopkeepers, wine-growers and others whose participation in the civic militia and acceptance of the status-quo were indispensable to preserving order. It examines not only the language and symbolism of the entries themselves but also the roles different social groups played in the ceremonies and the local contexts in which they were staged. The article also analyzes how the "entrées" messages were reinforced in "patois" street plays of Dijon's carnivalesque "mére folle" troupe. These plays, written and staged by many of the same notables responsible for the entries, translated the ceremonies' classical humanist imagery into terms accessible to the broader populace and reaffirmed the latter's place in the larger urban community.
- Subjects
DIJON (France); FRANCE; CEREMONIAL entries; RITES &; ceremonies; URBAN life; SOCIAL classes -- History; LOUIS XIII, King of France, 1601-1643; HENRY III, King of France, 1551-1589; TRAVEL; SEVENTEENTH century; HISTORY
- Publication
Journal of Social History, 2004, Vol 38, Issue 2, p341
- ISSN
0022-4529
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1353/jsh.2004.0114