Court Business: Finance and Financiers at Louis XIII’s Court
Rowland Woodward, an English envoy at Louis XIII’s court, reported in September 1624 that the excess and luxury of French treasurers was such, that ‘in bravery, diet and furniture of houses, they exceed the greatest of the Noblesse’. Despite contemporaries’ frequent anxieties about the blurring of noble and financial culture, when historians discuss the royal court, treasurers and financiers rarely come up. Yet Louis XIII’s reign is notable for the striking increase in the prestige of treasurers and growth in their connections with court society. This paper thus explores the ties of Louis XIII’s financiers to the French court, how these ties affected power structures at court and how these bonds were viewed by the crown. In so doing, it seeks to shed new light on the relationship between money and power in Ancien Regime France.
Date: 16 October 2023, 17:00 (Monday, 2nd week, Michaelmas 2023)
Venue: Online
Speaker: Marc Jaffré (Durham)
Organising department: Faculty of History
Organiser contact email address: cathleen.sarti@history.ox.ac.uk
Part of: Economic History of Monarchy
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/research-seminar-economic-history-of-monarchy-tickets-130176616765
Booking email: cathleen.sarti@history.ox.ac.uk
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Belinda Clark