The Return Of Martin Guerre Summary

She states, “so important were these family houses to Basque villagers that each was given a name which the heir and his wife assumed”(Davis 6). Davis is portraying how property had a great importance for peasants of certain villages and how it was a major part of their lives. Davis also mentions in the case of Sanxi that he “could not have sold it easily if he had wanted to, for the Fors-that is, the customs of the Labourd-prohibited the alienation of patrimonial goods except in cases of dire necessity and then only with the consent of other interested kin” (Davis 8). Sanxi’s lack of option to sell his property, unless given approval by other family who are uninterested in the property, shows that in certain villages peasants were concerned with maintaining their property within their family. Davis also contrasts this social norm of family property with explaining the social norms when dealing with property in other villages. Sanxi moved to new village called Artigat. It is stated, “What was really different from the Basque country was the way the land moved, both in inheritance and in sales. Here in the plain below the Pyrenees there was very little effort among the common people to hold the family property together” (Davis 11). Davis is doing a successful job of portraying property as economic means but also as a way of social standing.

The French Revolution was a time of great social, political and economic tumult in the closing years of the Eighteenth Century. The motivators pushing French citizenry toward revolution are varied in scope and origin. They range from immediate economic woes to an antiquarian class structure. Modern historians still debate the value of the changes that the revolution brought to modern society. The middle class made gains that would never be rescinded, but do revolutions always end in tyranny? In the years before the revolution citizens were rigidly constrained by the estates of the realm. These social strata had been in place since the medieval ages. The people were divided into three groups; clergy, nobility and everyone else. The clergy

Starting with the premodern society and moving on to our modern society I will compare and contrast the two societies.

In the sixteenth century France was mainly a farming country. People lived in small communities and rarely died in a town other than where they were born (Gildea 42). Family life was quit simple, men married when

The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the book "The Return of Martin Guerre" by Natalie Zamon Davis. Specifically, it will discuss the life of the peasant during the Middle Ages. This book is a fascinating account of a true case that happened during the 16th century in France. The book is also an excellent example of how the peasants lived in the Middle Ages, from what they ate, to how they traveled and what their family lives were like.

Natalie Zemon Davis’ famous work The Return of Martin Guerre is a story of a man who runs away from his family and home, an imposter comes and takes over his life, and returns only when the imposter is about to be found innocent in trial. Davis’ story has the new Martin Guerre and his new wife Bertrande, work together to invent a marriage between them. The story is about identity, culture and love in 16th century peasant society.

(d-11) He notes that the poor often talk about how accustomed they were to that lifestyle in that they can be independent and sleep where wherever they want because they have no worries. This view of the poor can be debated because during the mid-1500s, a peasant revolt occurred and was violently suppressed when Martin Luther expressed his distain for the stupid peasants and their misinterpretation of his teachings. In 1625, cardinal Richelieu suggested that people should give discerningly to the poor because the vagabonds were taking advantage of the situation and were being helped out by the kindhearted. (d-8)

Natalie Zemon-Davis’s 1983 book The Return of Martin Guerre provided both the public and academic world with a fresh and interesting take on a classic story. Presented like a mystery thriller, Davis weaves a tale of deception based on a solid framework of cultural history. Her narrative depends on grounding the characters of Bertrande de Rols, Martin Guerre, Arnaud du Tihl, and their associates within a web of social context. Davis draws heavily on the traditional Coras narrative, but also supplements the established story with the version presented in Le Sueur, a new source she discovered. Additionally, she incorporates unusual sources dealing with broader social context and infers specifics from a general study of period interactions. It is this latter approach that historian Robert Finlay disagrees with. He claims that Davis does not appropriately rely on the source material provided by the Coras narrative and thus gives an unnecessarily dramatic version of events. The AHR forum on the subject includes both Finlay’s review and Davis’s response, providing a model of scholarly debate that extends beyond the actual content of the book in question. In addition to being a rhetorical critique, Finlay is attacking the foundational methodology of modern social history that Davis is then compelled to defend.

Once after reading the novel, The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis and the two articles, “On the Lame” by Natalie Zemon Davis and “The Refashioning of Martin Guerre” by Robert Finlay. It is evident, Bertrande was motivated by preserving her family’s honor and her own. Bertrande was on both sides during the trial because she was trying to figure out, which decision from the court case is going to benefit her family and herself the most. For example, one of the worries Bertrande has was she didn’t want her new daughter (the one she had with the fake Martin) to be a dishonor of adultery.

The Return of Martin Guerre written by Natalie Davis gives the audience a rare glimpse into the world of peasant life in sixteenth century France. It also allows a modern day audience a chance to examine and to compare their own identities and questions of self. What makes the story so interesting to modern day viewers and readers is how relevant the story and the people in it are to our own times. This story is about a history of everyday people rather than royalty and generals, history's usual subjects.

Peasant Society (pg 18): In 1450, most European were peasant, farmworkers who lived in small villages. There working rights were taken in for labor workers. They also created local markets to help their economy.

For many centuries, a feudal system had been in use in France. The peasants and serfs

Jean Valijean had neither, money , status or rights because he was a lowly peasant! The burden of trying to feed his family ,

The peasant has always been looked upon as an object of pity, an underclass citizen who worked to provide for the higher classes. A passage from Pierce the Ploughman’s Creed gives the perfect description of a day in the life of a peasant: As I went by the way, weeping for sorrow, I saw a poor man hanging on to the plough. His coat was of a coarse stuff which was called cary; his hood was full of holes and his hair stuck out of it. As he trod the soil his toes stuck out of his worn shoes with their thick soles; his hocks on all sides and he was all bedaubed with muck as he followed the plough. He had two mittens, scantily made of rough stuff, with worn-out fingers and thick with muck. This man bemired himself in mud

For many people in the early 18th century, life was based on subsistence living. An individualís human nature was dictated by their bloodline and their social position was secured by birth. If a man was born a peasant, he stayed a peasant, and he died a peasant. This theory of blood can be summed up in one statement: "You are what you bleed." People viewed their environment within the confines of localism, which is limiting life to a locality, and described it as ìnasty, brutish, and shortî because of the subsistence lifestyle they led in an agrarian, nature-based society. An individualís inherent qualities, their ways of life, the very spirit of his nature, were completely encumbered to the process of survival. The individual did not exist to express their being or their mind. The difficulties of this life led to collectiveness among people of common blood. Human ingenuity, the desire to be free, and the ability to reason for themselves, instead of living by the divinely bestowed power of an absolute monarch, did not exist in the first half of the 18th century. Human nature was bland, oppressed, and uncreative. It was contained within the walls of ancestry, chained by subsistence and localism, and oppressed by a central rulerís power that could not be questioned because of the fear of God.