This fascinating study of early modern France shows how the communal, oral culture of an older Europe came to be replaced by a recognizably modern culture. Robin Briggs examines the conflicts caused by social and intellectual change and the tensions between the elite and the common people, and explores major issues including the family, witchcraft, church and state, and popular revolt.

This book is about attitudes and behavior in early modern France, dealing particularly with the conflicts related to social and intellectual changes, and with the tensions between the elite and the common people. Topics discussed include witchcraft, popular belief and superstition, confession, the family, Church and State, and popular revolt. Briggs combines the methods of social history and of "histoire de mentalites" to produce an in-depth analysis of the changes and tensions which mark this period as one of vital development in all these areas. The book offers a lively critique of some current interpretations of seventeenth-century France, which have been the subject of much recent controversy.

essential reading for any social historian of seventeenth-century France