Vienna and Versailles
Subtitle: the courts of Europe's major dynastic rivals, 1550-1780
By: Jeroen Duindam.
Series: New studies in European history
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2003
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 349
ISBN-13: 9780521822626
Subjects: Habsburg, House of; Bourbon, House of; Vienna (Austria) -- Court and courtiers; Vienna (Austria) -- Intellectual life; Versailles (France) -- Court and courtiers; Versailles (France) -- Intellectual life; Paris (France) -- Intellectual life
Description: This book brings vividly to life the courtiers and servants of the imperial court in Vienna and the royal court at Paris-Versailles. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished material masterfully set in a comparative context, the book makes a unique contribution to the field of court studies. Staff, numbers, costs, and hierarchies; daily routines and ceremonies; court favourites and the nature of rulership; the integrative and centripetal forces of the central courtly establishment: all are seen in a long-term, comparative perspective that highlights both the similarities and the distinctiveness of developments in France and the Habsburg lands. In the process, most conventional views of each court - and of court life in general - are challenged, and a new interpretation emerges. Finally, by relocating the household in the heart of the early modern state, Vienna and Versailles forces us to rethink the process of statebuilding and the notion of 'absolutism'.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 321-342) and index.