The Myth of Absolutism

This text examines the early modern period and begins by focusing on France, examining the Valois and Bourbon monarchs and the modes of operation they employed. The second part of the text looks at early modern Europe, making the distinction between "absolute" and "limited" monarchs.

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Conventionally, ``absolutism'' in early-modern Europe has suggested unfettered autocracy and despotism -- the erosion of rights, the centralisation of decision-making, the loss of liberty. Everything, in a word, that was un-British but characteristic of ancien-regime France. Recently historians have questioned such comfortably simplistic views. This lively investigation of ``absolutism'' in action -- continent-wide but centred on a detailed comparison of France and England -- dissolves the traditional picture to reveal a much more complex reality; and in so doing illuminates the varied ways in which early-modern Europe was governed.