Music, Discipline, And Arms In Early Modern France

Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France

In this groundbreaking new study, Kate van Orden examines noble education in the arts to show how music contributed to cultural and social transformation in early modern French society. She constructs a fresh account of music's importance in promoting the absolutism that the French monarchy would fully embrace under Louis XIV, uncovering many hitherto unpublished ballets and royal ceremonial performances. The great pressure on French noblemen to take up the life of the warrior gave rise to bellicose art forms such as sword dances and equestrian ballets. Far from being construed as effeminizing, such combinations of music and the martial arts were at once refined and masculine-a perfect way to display military prowess. The incursion of music into riding schools and infantry drills contributed materially to disciplinary order, enabling the larger and more effective armies of the seventeenth century. This book is a history of the development of these musical spheres and how they brought forth new cultural priorities of civility, military discipline, and political harmony. Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France effectively illustrates the seminal role music played in mediating between the cultural spheres of letters and arms. Review "This book is a brilliant, learned, and convincing advance in the understanding of Renaissance history and European culture in general." -- Orest A. Ranum, The Johns Hopkins University"A very impressive and engaging work of scholarship. Music, Discipline, and Arms in Early Modern France argues that music played an important part in changing the character of the French ruling elite during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In particular, it contributed to the broad process of behavioral and cultural disciplining that the French nobility underwent during this time. Van Orden shows wide knowledge of sixteenth-century literature and a great understanding of the technical realities of early modern warfare." -- Jonathan Dewald, State University of New York, Buffalo"Music refines manners, according to a French proverb. We know relatively little about the role music played in war, or about how closely it was connected to the military arts. However, music could not avoid being drawn into the training of the military and the pedagogical and civilizing demands of their profession. From troops to officers, from the general staff at court right up to the Royal Commander in Chief, music, musicians, singers, instrumentalists, and dancers actively participated in the machinery of modern civilization. Kate van Orden's book is an innovative, original, and convincing addition to this field. It successfully leads the reader in a seductive and sensitive rediscovery of the noises and sounds of war in a bygone age." -- Daniel Roche, Coll