Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe's Dynastic Rivals, 1550-1780

Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe's Dynastic Rivals, 1550-1780
ISBN-10
0521822629
ISBN-13
9780521822626
Category
Architecture
Pages
349
Language
English
Published
2003-08-14
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Authors
Lecturer in History Royal Holloway and Bedford New College Lyndal Roper, Jeroen Frans Jozef Duindam, Jeroen Duindam

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 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 an alternative 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'.

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