Networks and sociability at the court of France, 17^th-18^th century

In the early modern period, the French court constituted a social space of exceptional density, where proximity to power, hierarchies of service, logics of distinction, economic interests, family alliances and career strategies intersected. Studying it therefore does not simply mean observing a political or ceremonial framework: it also means analysing a world of relationships, circulations and interdependencies, in which positions were constantly shaped, negotiated, transmitted and redefined.

The research programme “Networks and Sociability at the French Court, Seventeenth-Eighteenth Centuries” aims to achieve a better understanding of the human, social and material structures that organised court society around the sovereign and his family. It seeks to examine jointly the individuals, groups, offices, assets, solidarities, practices of service and mechanisms of social reproduction that gave substance to court life.

Here, the court is understood as a dynamic ensemble, made up of familial, professional, geographical, economic, clientelar and symbolic ties. Such an approach makes it possible to shed light on the interrelation of the concrete forms of the exercise of power, the material conditions of presence at court, strategies of advancement or maintenance, as well as the multiple forms of sociability that structured daily court life.

The programme is based on two complementary strands that explore the same subject through distinct yet closely connected lenses.

This programme is based on two complementary strands.

The first strand, “PERCOUR. Persons, Offices and Court Networks”, is devoted to the prosopographical approach. It examines the court through the people who composed it, the offices they held, and the ties they maintained with one another. It aims to document individual trajectories, continuities of service, kinship logics, networks of influence, the internal hierarchies of royal and princely households, and the mechanisms governing the transmission and acquisition of offices. It provides the documentary and methodological foundation indispensable to a fine-grained and renewed understanding of the court world.

The second strand, “ÉcoNoble. The Nobility with the King: The Economy of Courtly Cohabitation (1682-1789)”, is devoted to the economic study of the court. It focuses on the material, patrimonial and financial dimensions of court life: the cost of presence at court, income, expenditure, debt, the circulation of offices, investment strategies, the weight of marital alliances, dynamics of promotion, and the articulation between service to the prince and family interests. Its aim is to show that the court was not merely a place of representation, but also an economic space in its own right, in which career choices, the transmission of capital and specific forms of social mobility were at stake.

The programme’s originality lies in the articulation of these two approaches. Prosopographical enquiry makes it possible to reconstruct the actors, their trajectories and their relationships. Economic study, for its part, sheds light on the material conditions of their presence at court, the resources they mobilised, the constraints they faced and the room for manoeuvre available to them. By bringing these approaches into dialogue, the programme seeks to offer a reading of the French court that is at once social, relational and material.

It thus seeks to gain a better understanding of how court groups were formed, how positions were transmitted, how reputations were constructed, how service and interests were articulated, and how, in daily life, the multiple forms of sociability that structured life in closest proximity to power unfolded.

Through this organisation into two strands, the programme asserts a clear scholarly ambition: to renew the history of the court by combining the critical use of sources, the structuring of data, network analysis, and attention to the concrete practices of service, exchange, cohabitation and distinction.

Team

Programme Director: Mathieu da Vinha, Director of the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles.

Coordinator of the “PERCOUR - Persons, Offices and Networks at the French Court” strand: Benjamin Ringot, Head of Research, Events and Teaching at the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles.

Coordinator of the “Éconoble - The Nobility with the King: The Economy of Courtly Cohabitation (1682-1789)” strand: Flavie Leroux, Research Officer at the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles.

Scientific Committee:

• Aurélie Chatenet-Calyste, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History, Rennes 2 University;
• Daniel Dessert, historian;
• Anne-Madeleine Goulet, Director of Research at the CNRS (UMR 7323), Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance;
• Pauline Lemaigre-Gaffier, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History, Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University;
• Pascale Mormiche, PhD in Early Modern History, agrégée, former PRAG at CY Cergy Paris Université.

Call for contributions

Please consult our call for publications in the Bulletin du Centre de recherche linked to this research programme.