Carnival in Romans: People's Uprising at Romans, 1579-80

by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie

The city of Romans, in Dauphine province in southern France, was the annual scene of a colorfully animated Mardi Gras carnival. In 1580, however, winter festivities degenerated into bloody ambush. While costumed craftsmen & peasants mimed & danced their uprising in the streets, & notables & bourgeoisie hurried from banquets to balls in ostentatious finery, Jean Serve-Paumier, master craftsman, draper & popular party leader was assassinated, his supporters beaten & pursued by a mob hired by Judge Antoine Guerin, leader of the inflexibly reactionary part of the ruling party. More than a cruel incident, this night marked the intersection of an urban movement & even larger rural stirrings. Ladurie marshals a wealth of evidence & reveals the town of Romans as a microcosm of the political & religious antagonisms tearing 16th-century France.

Le Carnival de Romans: de la chandeleur au mercredi des cenders describes the massacre of about 20 artisans at an annual carnival. Ladurie uses the two surviving eyewitness accounts--one hostile towards the victims by Guérin, the other sympathetic yet often inaccurate by Piémond--along with such information as plague & tax lists, to treat the massacre as a microcosm of rural political, social & religious conflicts, thereby providing a good example of microhistory.

Genres: History, France, Nonfiction, European History, Medieval, Death

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie was a French historian whose work is mainly focused upon Languedoc in the ancient regime, particularly the history of the peasantry.

Emmanuel Ladurie was professor at the Collège de France and, since 1973, chair, department of history of modern civilization. He has had a distinguished career, serving as Administrateur Général of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (1987-94); member of the Institute (Academy of Moral and Political Sciences); Agrégé of the University, Doctor of Letters; Commander of the Legion of Honor (1996); and has taught at the universities of Montpellier, the Sorbonne, and Paris VII. Dr. Ladurie is the author of many historical works, including Les Paysans de Languedoc (1966), Histoire du Climat depuis l'An Mil (second ed., 1983), Montaillou, village occitan (1975), Le Territoire, de l'Historien (2 vols., 1973, 1978), Le Carnaval de Romans, 1579-1580 (1980), L'Etat royal (1987), L'Ancien Regime (1991), Le Siècle de Platter (1995), and Saint-Simon, le systeme de la Cour (1997).

Reviews

[Raymond Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is also a representative work of the third generation of the Annales school. However, what makes this book unique is that it is not just a case study but a restoration of the sixteenth-century Mercian Romance and the surrounding area using a quantitative-historical approach. In Ladurie's writing, the causes and consequences, the class analysis, the social basis and even the internal logic of a large demonstration that took place at a carnival are shown clearly. Anti-aristocratic tendencies characterized the revolt, whose base came from the artisan and peasant classes in the Romance cities and the peasant unions in the surrounding rural areas. These people, who were in the third tier of the États généraux, questioned their long-standing subordination to the privileged classes. Therefore, this book is also essential for studying the history of uprisings (protests, demonstrations, rebellions).

[Dan Urbach · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very interesting, but it is a bit of slog. The idea is fascinating, and the author states his excitement about it in the introduction: the history of a single place in France. He had to focus on one event or the history would have been too long. The book is apparently written to engage scholars as well as the general public, but it seems more likely to work for the former than the latter. Not being a scholar myself, it's difficult, but I'm determined. It does show one how digging into history works, and that is probably the most interesting thing about tit.

[Norman Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very impressive work of scholarship, but it does plunge more deeply into the pool of facts than I am really interested in. Consequently, I found myself skimming through large stretches of the book.

However, if I were interested in 16th century France and social relations, this would be aces!

[Peires · Rating 4 out of 5]

Presumably trying to cash in on the popularity of the author's "Montaillou," publishers have added irritating and misleading sub-title. This is unfair to Ladurie. Primary sources not nearly as vivid, cannot get inside the worldview of the participants, nevertheless a model of its kind.

[Bjarke Knudsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up on a whim at a Copenhagen booksale, this intense account of a 16th-century precursor to the much more (in)famous uprising took me more time than expected to get through.

It helps if you are at least fundamentally familiar with French geography and history.

[debroua · Rating 1 out of 5]

Passei foi raiva

[Millie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Things I need: a Netflix adaptation of this book with Timothee Chalamet as Jean Serve Paumier

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as interesting for me as Montaillou, probably because I know so much more about the Cathars than about the general peasant situation in sixteenth century southern France, but still an excellent example of the increasingly popular field of microhistory.

[Lanny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll read anything by Emmanuel.