Wednesday, April 6th, 2016 Civility, Violence and Civilization, 1500-1800

Description

The word civilization is a special one in the West. It was first coined in the 1750s to explain the civilization of manners that had occurred during the previous century. Today, this process is commonly attributed to the invention of civility, which it is argued progressively tamed violent instincts. This paper demonstrates that this cannot have been the case as violence soared as the new code of civility was being adopted. I go on to explain Europeans’ response to the wave of violence and expose the heart of darkness at the centre of European civilization.

Stuart Carroll is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of York. He has wide interests in the history of early modern Europe, the history of violence, and social history. He is currently working on a project entitled “The Origins of Civil Society,” drawing on sources in French, German, and Italian, as well as English.

His initial research work centred on the political culture during the French Wars of Religion, and on the interface between noble followings and popular religious mentalities, and he was twice winner of the Nancy Roelker prize for the best article published in English in early modern France (2000 & 2003). More recently, he published a major evaluation of the role of feud and vendetta in early modern France: Blood and Violence in Early Modern France (2006), which led him to re-think the role of violence in history in the edited collection, Cultures of Violence: Interpersonal Violence in Historical Perspective (2007). His most recent book, Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe (2009), was awarded the J. Russell Major prize by the American Historical Association in 2011 for the best French history book of the year.