| From Valor to Pedigree: Ideas of Nobility in France in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Subjects: France -- Nobility -- History -- 16th century; France -- Nobility -- History -- 17th century; France -- Social life and customs -- 1328–1600; France -- Social life and customs -- 17th–18th centuries; This study offers a new interpretation of how nobility was viewed in sixteenth-century France and the changes that occurred in that view as France moved into the period of religious wars and popular rebellions and the appearance of the absolutist state. |