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The Tumult Of Amboise And The Importance Of Historical Memory In Sixteenth-Century France, Trevor Charles Schmitz-Thursam

Dissertations and Theses

Humanist legal scholarship was the catalyst to historical revolution that took place in sixteenth-century France. French philologists succeeded in demonstrating the cultural distinctiveness of France from a heretofore assumed classical heritage shared with ancient Rome. As a result, scholars sought to retrace the historical origins of France in the non-Roman Gauls and Franks. Their intensive study of the laws, customs and institutions that developed in France, as distinct from ancient Rome, transformed the understanding of the national past. Following the introduction of the principles of historical anachronism and cultural relativism, the sixteenth century witnessed a transformation of traditional perceptions of …