| Titre | Paradoxes de l'ordre et logiques fragmentaires : une province entre en guerre civile (Bretagne, 1589) | |
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| Auteur | Philippe Hamon | |
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Revue | Revue historique |
| Numéro | no 671, juillet 2014 | |
| Rubrique / Thématique | Discours de haine, violences de guerre (2) |
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| Page | 597-628 | |
| Résumé |
Les conditions d'entrée de la Bretagne dans les guerres de la Ligue en 1589 sont originales, dans la mesure où la province s'est tenue jusque-là très largement à l'écart des guerres de Religion. Mais les logiques de ce processus ne lui sont pas forcément spécifiques. On constate en premier lieu que la volonté générale de défendre l'ordre local, aussi bien que la large nécessité sociale de l'engagement au service des communautés, se muent bien souvent en facteurs de clivage à une échelle plus large, contribuant ainsi à l'extension concrète du conflit dans la province. Ce premier paradoxe de l'ordre se double d'un second : en effet pour assurer l'ordre, une mobilisation populaire peut être requise, alors même que le peuple, une fois armé, est toujours soupçonné par les élites de songer à la subversion. Reste ensuite à comprendre sur quels critères se font les choix partisans. Certains des modèles explicatifs mis en avant, aussi bien sociaux que religieux, rendent mal compte de cette division. Il faut se tourner vers des rivalités héritées entre hommes de pouvoir ou entre villes, qui ne sont plus régulées par l'arbitrage et la faveur issus du roi. Opèrent alors les logiques segmentaires propres à la société du temps, qu'on peut qualifier de politiques mais qui n'ont généralement rien d'idéologique. La capacité militaire de contrôle des points d'appui et des espaces joue ensuite un rôle essentiel, d'autant que l'engagement armé, facteur de politisation, se diffuse largement. Ainsi les logiques qui se dégagent peuvent nourrir une réflexion plus large sur l'éclatement d'une guerre civile. Source : Éditeur (via Cairn.info) |
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| Résumé anglais |
Paradoxes of order and fragmentary logics : a county enters in civil war (Brittany, 1589). Although the kingdom of France had been dominated for a generation by conflicts of a religious kind, the conditions which led Brittany to join the Catholic League in 1589 were quite different, since the province had largely kept out of the previous Wars of Religion. But the different logics at work in this process, which will be studied here, were not necessarily specific to Brittany. First of all, there was a general desire on the part of all social groups to protect the local order. This position was shared by a wide range of people, since royal officials, members of town councils and other prominent individuals (upper clergy, higher and middling nobility for example) all had a virtual obligation to serve the community, particularly when it was in difficulty. But because of their partisan diversity, their interventions almost invariably became a source of division that transcended the specifically local context. Thus they encouraged the extension of the conflict across the province. This first paradox of order found itself accompanied by a second one, namely that in order to preserve order it was often necessary to mobilize the populace, even though once armed, the populace was always suspected by the elites of thinking in terms of subversion. This contradiction was hard to manage, although order, security and peace seemed ultimately to be the major ‘social' demand of the ordinary population when such a crisis arose. The basis on which these partisan choices were made need to be analyzed. Some of the explanatory models, whether they are social or religious, fail to account for this division. Royalist Catholics adopted anti-Protestant positions just as clearly as did members of the Catholic League. It is hard to find a form of social conflict that would delimit the two camps, whether it concerns the conflicts between officials and merchants, town and country or peasants and their lords. In seeking more convincing explanations, we need to take account of inherited rivalries that pitted men of power or towns against each other. These rivalries were no longer regulated by the arbitration or the favour of a king who was himself disqualified by his own partisanship. Instead, segmentary logics inherent in the society of the time were at work, logics which may be characterized as political, but which in general had no ideological dimension. The capacity of military power to control key points and spaces then plays a key role in ensuring the local success of a party. As a factor in politicizing conflicts, military engagement then becomes widespread. This analysis of the logics that emerged should encourage a more general reflection on the conditions that permit the outbreak of civil war, especially in the early modern period. Source : Éditeur (via Cairn.info) |
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| Article en ligne | http://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=RHIS_143_0597 |
