The Return of Martin Guerre

Natalie Zemon Davis; Martin Guerre; Arnault Du Tilh

Published by Harvard University Press 1983

The Return of Martin Guerre

Natalie Zemon Davis , Martin Guerre and Arnault Du Tilh

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674417335

Overview
Contents

About this book

The clever peasant Arnaud du Tilh had almost won his case when a man with a wooden leg swaggered into the French courtroom, denounced du Tilh, and reestablished his claim to the identity, property, and wife of Martin Guerre. This book, by the noted historian who served as a consultant for the film, adds new dimensions to this famous legend.

Reviews

A fascinating reconstruction of a famous incident of impostorship and love in sixteenth-century rural France. Davis delicately deploys historical fact to suggest what is singular about the modern individual.
-- Todd Gitlin The Nation

Natalie Zemon Davis…has scoured the legal and notarial records of south-western France to recreate for the reader not merely a highly entertaining story but a vivid picture of the world which fashioned its principal characters. Her observations on property rights, inheritance, customs, family relationships and the mechanisms of the law are welded together by a rare blend of historical craft and imagination… Professor Davis’s ability to combine lively narrative, wit, historical reflection and psychological analysis will ensure for this book a wide audience. It is truly captivating story with which to pass a rainy weekend; it is also a brilliantly professional reconstruction of the rural world of sixteenth-century France, which will both stimulate and inform for many years to come.
-- David Parker Times Literary Supplement

In her intelligent and subtle analysis, the story gives an inside view of an otherwise little-known world, the private lives of peasants… Natalie Davis has also collaborated on an excellent film of the story (produced in France) as well as writing this book… One can only admire Natalie Davis for the major work of historical reconstruction she has performed without any kind of ideological bias… About Martin Guerre, I would say, without hesitation, the movie was great, but Natalie Davis’s book is even greater.
-- Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie New York Review of Books

Davis combines a veteran researcher’s expertise with a lay reader’s curiosity and an easygoing style. She draws on sophisticated…work in land tenure, legal rights, and demography to reinterpret a ‘prodigious history’ among the French peasantry… Davis’s book combines ingredients essential to good social history—painstaking historical research and a vividly empathetic imagination. The result of this happy combination is that character emerges in context… Davis’s book balances possibility and constraint, character and situation. It puts people back into history but doesn’t take the social and political forces out of it. The universal is there in particular, and it makes you think not only about their choices then, but about ours now.
-- Pat Aufderheide Village Voice

Written in a lively prose style that is accessible without ever being simplistic. The Return of Martin Guerre may be the most vivid, informative and entertaining history writing since Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror…a rich and colorful picture of life, love and justice in 16th-century France.
-- Robert C. Cumbow Seattle Times

The fullest account to date of this extraordinary tale. Davis has constructed a fine piece of social history, a look into the lives of 16th-century peasants who left no records because they could neither read nor write.
-- Jean Strouse Newsweek

A fascinating anecdote, with enough colorful background, psychological complexity, and unsolved mysteries to delight any intelligent audience.
-- Kirkus Reviews

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	xii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 From Hendaye to Artigat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	6
2 The Discontented Peasant Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
3 The Honor of Bertrande de Rols Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
4 The Masks of Arnaud du Tilh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
5 The Invented Marriage Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
6 Quarrels Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
7 The Trial at Rieux Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
8 The Trial at Toulouse Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
9 The Return of Martin Guerre Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	82
10 The Storyteller Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
11 Histoire prodigieuse, Histoire tragique Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	104
12 Of the Lame Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	114
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
Selected Bibliography of Writings on Martin Guerre Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	132
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 176
Keywords: jean de coras; marguerite de navarre; adultery; calumny; punishment; basque country; imposture; guillaume le sueur; trial; witnesses; hendaye; testaments; torture; fraud; marriage; pierre; execution; hanging

eBook

Published: October 15, 1984
ISBN: 9780674417335