FAMILY BUSINESS This page intentionally left blank Family Business Litigation and the Political Economies of Daily Life in Early Modern France J U L I E H A R DW I C K 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Julie Hardwick 2009 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2009 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hardwick, Julie, 1962– Family business : litigation and the political economies of daily life in early modern France / Julie Hardwick p cm Includes bibliographical references ISBN 978–0–19–955807–0 Domestic relations courts—France—History Family—Economic aspects— France—History Family-owned business enterprises—France—History I Title KJV939.H37 2009 330.944’033—dc22 2009013904 Typeset by Laserwords Private Limited, Chennai, India Printed and bound in the UK on acid-free paper by MPG Biddles Ltd ISBN 978–0–19–955807–0 (Hbk) 10 Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction: Family Business vii ix 1 Economies of Marriage: Managing Marital Status 20 Economies of Justice: The Possibilities of a People’s Court 57 Economies of Family Politics: Litigation Communities, Subject, and State 88 Economies of Markets: Borrowing, Customary Practices, and Emerging Markets 128 Economies of Violence: Battery, Neighbourhood Values, and Legal Remedies 183 Epilogue: Family Business on the Cusp of the Modern World Bibliography Index 222 235 249 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgements Twenty-first-century economies of many kinds made this book possible The National Endowment for the Humanities provided both a Summer Stipend and a year-long Fellowship Norman Fiering, then Director of John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, welcomed me for a semester to that collegial and stimulating early modern centre Texas Christian University and the University of Texas at Austin provided other kinds of financial support Alan Tully, the chair of the History Department at the University of Texas, gave me a teaching load reduction at a critical point to allow me to reach the finishing line Numerous friends and colleagues offered many forms of encouragement, enthusiasm, and engagement with many parts of this project over the years I discussed aspects of it on many occasions at which I benefited from formal discussion and informal conversation I have appreciated all their suggestions even when I did not heed them In particular, I was fortunate to be invited to two engrossing seminars that had profound impacts on the ultimate shape of this book: ‘Law, Family and the State in the early modern Atlantic World’ hosted by the Institute for Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and ‘In the Maelstrom of the Market: women and the early modern economy’ at the Folger Institute in Washington DC I thank all the participants for the dialogues on those occasions As I finished the manuscript, Tom Green raised a series of important questions that I valued very much At Oxford University Press, Rupert Cousens, Seth Cayley and Melanie Johnstone welcomed and stewarded this project with warm efficiency I thank my readers for their thoughtfulness Much earlier versions of some parts of this book first appeared elsewhere, and I am grateful for permission to include material from the following pieces, often in much modified form: ‘Seeking separations: gender and household economies in seventeenth-century France’, French Historical Studies 21, (Winter 1998); ‘Early modern perspectives on the long history of domestic violence: the case of seventeenth-century France’, Journal of Modern History 78 (March 2006); ‘Between state and street: witnesses and the family politics of litigation in early modern France’, Family, Gender, and Law in Early Modern France, ed by Suzanne Desan and Jeffrey Merrick (Penn State University Press, 2009) My writing group at the University of Texas has been a model of collegial camaraderie Susan Dean-Smith, Martha Newman, and Cyndy Talbot have read numerous more and (usually much) less polished versions of all the pieces of this book in many different forms I thank them for their intellectual vigour and rigour as well as for their friendship and solidarity viii Acknowledgements I did not have any children when I made the initial foray into the archives for what became this book, and I finish it as the mother of two I have been lucky to navigate the exhilaration as well as the exhaustion of working motherhood in the company of Erika Bsumek, Beth Hedrick, Lori Wallace, and Gretchen Webber I also thank all the many people whose childcare made my work on this book possible I worked on this book through some extended difficult personal circumstances Chris Adams, Erika Bsumek, Faulkner Fox, Beth Hedrick, Bruce Hunt, Steve Lofgren, Dirk Maxwell, Gunther Peck, Alan Shepard, Lori Wallace, Gretchen Webber, and Andy Weinberg deserve a better reward than this book, but I would not have persisted with it, nor with much else, without them Karin Wulf and Martha Newman are in a special gold star category on both personal and professional fronts This book is for my family: for Bob Olwell who knows why, and for our daughters, Grace Hardwick Olwell and Rosie Hardwick Olwell, whose company has proved to be the most extraordinary and impossible to articulate pleasure of my life Abbreviations ADLA Archives D´epartementales de Loire-Atlantique ADR Archives D´epartementales du Rhˆone AML Archives Municipales de Lyon ADSA Archives D´epartementales de Saˆone et Loire Isambert Franc¸ois Isambert, Recueil G´en´eral des anciennes lois Franc¸aises depuis l’an 420 jusqu’`a la R´evolution (Paris, 1829–33) ... Cataloging in Publication Data Hardwick, Julie, 1962– Family business : litigation and the political economies of daily life in early modern France / Julie Hardwick p cm Includes bibliographical references.. .FAMILY BUSINESS This page intentionally left blank Family Business Litigation and the Political Economies of Daily Life in Early Modern France J U L I E H A R DW I... at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and In the Maelstrom of the Market: women and the early modern economy’ at the Folger Institute in Washington DC I thank all the participants for the