book

Book of the Week: Feminism, Absolutism, and Jansenism.

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Feminism, Absolutism, and Jansenism.  Louis XIV and the Port-Royal Nuns, by Daniella Kostroun. Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis.  Publisher: Cambridge University Press. Print Publication Year: 2011. Online Publication Date: August 2011.  Online ISBN: 9780511976452. Hardback ISBN: 9781107000452. 288 pages.

 

From the Publisher: “Feminism, Absolutism, and Jansenism chronicles seventy years of Jansenist conflict and its complex intersection with power struggles between Gallican bishops, Parlementaires, the Crown and the Pope.  Daniella Kostroun focuses on the nuns of Port-Royal-des-Champs, whose community was disbanded by Louis XIV in 1709 as a threat to the state.  Paradoxically, it was the nuns’ adherence to their strict religious rule and the ideal of pious, innocent and politically disinterested behavior that allowed them to challenge absolutism effectively.  Adopting methods from cultural studies, feminism and the Cambridge school of political thought, Kostroun examines how these nuns placed gender at the heart of the Jansenist challenge to the patriarchal and religious foundations of absolutism; they responded to royal persecution with a feminist defense of women’s spiritual and rational equality and of the autonomy of the individual subject, thereby offering a bold challenge to the patriarchal and religious foundations of absolutism.”

Book of the week: Juan-Bautista Etienne y el Renacimiento Vicenciano

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This newly published work is the Spanish translation of my monograph published by the Vincentian Studies Institute in 2001 as: “Jean-Baptiste Etienne, C.M. and the Vincentian Revival.”  This volume is a leadership study of Jean-Baptiste Etienne (1801-1874) who served as the 14th superior general of the Congregation of the Mission and the Company of the Daughters of Charity (1843-1874).

 

Translated by Luis Huerga Astorga, published by Editorial CEME, Santa Marta de Tormes, Salamanca, Espana, 2011.  ISBN: 978-84-7349-146-4.  pp. 383.

Book of the Week: Love and Politics: The Revolutionary Frederic Ozanam

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Love and Politics: The Revolutionary Frederic Ozanam by John Honner, (Melbourne, Austrialia: David Lovell Publishing, 2007), pp. 121.  ISBN 9-78186355-121-2.  www.davidlovellpublishing.com

From the cover jacket:

“Frederic Ozanam is best known for founding the St. Vincent de Paul Society when he was a student at the University of Paris.  This book explores his later life and in particular his involvement in the revolutionary politics of 1850, when Karl Marx released his Communist Manifesto and Victor Hugo was completed Les Miserables. Ozanam emerges as a prophet for our own times, particularly with reference to debates about religion and politics, and about welfare and charity.”

The faith of Vincent de Paul in the midst of an unbelieving society

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The Vincentian Encyclopedia has posted an English translation of  THE FAITH OF VINCENT DE PAUL IN THE MIDST OF AN UNBELIEVING SOCIETY by Luis González-Carvajal Santabárbara.

“We have seen that even though Vincent lived in the midst of a situation seemingly different from our own, he did not find it easy to believe. His experience teaches us that the difficulties of life can become an authentic moment of kairos for the faith because, as mature love is that love which has overcome deception, so too mature faith is always faith that conquers the world (1 John 5:4).

 http://famvin.org/wiki/The_Faith_of_Vincent_de_Paul_in_the_Midst_of…

This article appeared in a Spanish language book of essays honoring the 350th anniversary.

Book of the Week: “Enlightened Charity”

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Martha M. Libster, Ph.D., R.N., and Betty Ann McNeil, D.C., Enligthtened Charity: The Holistic Nursing Care, Education, and Advices Concerning the Sick of Sr. Mathilda Coskery (1799-1870). (Golden Apple Publications: 2009). 528 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0975501825.

From the publisher: “Enligthened Charity is a lost history important to the identity of professional American nurses.  Throughout history nurses have been innovators in health reform creating models of safe and accessible health care for all.  Enlightened Charity documents the peioneering work of American Sisters of Charity nurses in the 19th century who sustained a centuries-old holistic healing tradition of their French predecessors in caring for the poor, sick, and mentally ill. Martha Matthews Libster and Sr. Betty Ann McNeil give us an intimate portrait of one sister in particular, Sister-Nurse Matilda Coskery, who during her 39-year nursing career from 1831 until 1870, partnered with medical consultants to create hospitals, clinical training programs for medical students, treatment programs, and standards of nursing care which earned her the distinction by physicians, nurses, and the public as an “oracle” in nursing care, particularly of the mentally ill.  Sister Matilda documented her expertise in a textbook for her students which she entitled “Advices concerning the Sick.”  This masterful treatise on the science and the ‘blessed art’ of nursing pre-dating Notes on Nursing by Florence Nightingale is published here in its entirety for the first time in the history of American nursing with commentary by the authors.  In its impeccable scholarship, Enlightened Charity repeals the myths about early nurses and documents why Sister Matilda and the Sisters of Charity were models for professional nursing in the nineteenth century.  The Sisters’ values of humility, simplicity, and charity and their intentional devotion to the spiritual as well as the physical needs of patients propelled them into a judicious, science-based care that won them national and international acclaim-though they did not seek it…”

17th Century “Photographs”

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It isn’t possible to look at photographs of 17th century France, but the closest we can come are the engravings of Abraham Bosse (1604-76). He was a master engraver of all sorts of subjects, including portraiture. For us, the most interesting will probably be his scenes of ordinary life, with particular emphasis on the depictions of the poor. He showed artisans at work, too, [see the engraving on the bakery below] and his scenes of schoolrooms—one for boys, another for girls—are nearly photographic.
His scenes of the Corporal Works of Mercy include the often-reproduced view of wealthy pious persons visiting a prison. The prisoner with a wide metal collar around his neck attached by a chain to the wall is astonishing. So is the scene of a wife beating her husband with a ring of heavy keys. At one side of the same engraving a young girl also is striking a boy, certainly in imitation of the family scene being enacted, and at the other side, a hen is pecking fiercely on a rooster. Bosse must have had a sense of humor.
He engraved another series of single individuals, showing off the details of their clothing. This is certainly as good as this gets.


If you ever wondered what kind of world Monsieur Vincent lived in, one access point is offered by these marvelous engravings. Bosse left more than 1,600 of them.

The Vincentian collection at DePaul recently purchased the book, whose cover is shown here. It is the catalogue of an exhibition dating from 2004.

It would be interesting to know more about his works.

There were, of course, other engravers and painters in his period, but many of them date from the time of Louis XIV. In this case, they represent the styles in vogue at least at the beginning of his reign. With Bosse, we are mainly shown the styles of Louis XIII and his wife, Anne of Austria, who became regent for Louis XIV until his formal accession to the throne in 1661.

Book of the Week: Captives and Corsairs: France and Slavery in the Early Modern Mediterranean

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Gillian Weiss, Captives and Corsairs France and Slavery in the Early Modern Mediterranean, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 389 pp. ISBN: 978-008047-7000-2

From the book jacket:

Captives and Corsairs uncovers a forgotten story in the history of relations between Islam and the West: three centuries of corsair raids on French ships and shores and the resulting captivity of tens of thousands of French subjects and citizens in North Africa. Through an analysis of archival materials, writings and images produced by contemporaries, the book fundamentally revises our picture of France’s emergence as a nation and a colonial power, presenting the Mediterranean as an essential vantage point for studying the rise of France.  It reveals how efforts to liberate slaves from North Africa shaped France’s perceptions of the Muslim world and of their own “Frenchness.”  From around 1550 to 1830, freeing these captives evolved from an expression of Christian charity to a method of state building, and, eventually to a rationale for imperial expansion.  Captives and Corsairs thus advances new arguments about the fluid nature of slavery and links captive redemption to state formation-and in turn to the still vital ideology of liberatory conquest.”

 

Commentary: Ultimately, any advancement of the discussion of the veracity and plausability of Vincent’s alleged Tunisian captivity will depend on an understanding of the background, nature, and details of Barbary captivity in the early 17th century.  This work provides just this sort of fascinating background.  It also contextualizes the activities of Vincent and the early Lazarists in North Africa.  Ed Udovic, C.M.

VHRN Book of the Week: Les Gondy de Retz

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Monique Bras-Paquin, Emile Boutin, Les Gondy de Retz, (Nantes: Editions Siloe, 2002), pp. 270. ISBN: 2-84231-218-X.

 

“La France du XVI e siècle fut profondément marquée par l’influence de ces Italiens qui, venus de Florence, de Milan, de Turin ou d’ailleurs, jouèrent un role préponderant dans l’évolution politique, économique, sociale et culturelle du royaume. Lorsque, quittant Florence au début au siècle, Antonio Gondi arrive à Lyon, qui pouvait penser que grâce à l’amitié qui devait rapprocher sa femme et une reine de France, un prestigieux destin attendait sa descendance? En un peu plus d’un siècle, sur fond d’histoire de France allant de Catherine de Médicis à Louis XIV, les homes et les femmes de cette famille écrivent avec passion et talent leur propre histoire. Ces Gondy de Retz, fortes personnalités, complexes et contrastées, souvent émouvantes, irritantes parfois mais ne laissant jamais indifférent, c’est à leur découverte que nous convie cet ouvrage.”

VHRN Book of the Week: A Social and Cultural History of Early Modern France

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William Beik, A Social and Cultural History of Early Modern France, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 401pp. ISBN: 978-0-521-88309-2.

From the publisher: “A magisterial new history of French society between the end of the Middle Ages and the Revolution by one of the world’s leading authorities on early modern France.  Using colorful examples and incorporating the latest scholarship, William Beik conveys the distinctiveness of early modern society and idetnfies the cultural practices that defined the lives of people at all levels of society.  Painting a vivid picture of the realities of everyday life, he reveals how society functioned and how the different classes interacted.  In addition to chapters on nobles, peasants, city people, and the court, the book sheds new light on the Catholic church, the army, popular protest, the culture of violence, gendered relations, and sociability.  This is a major new work that restores the ancien regime as a key epoch in its own right and not simply as the prelude to the coming Revolution.”

William Beik is Emeritus Professor of History at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.  His previous publications include: Urban Protest in Seventeenth-Century France: The Culture of Retribution (1997) and Louis XIV and Absolutism: A Study with Documents, 2000.