Society of Princes

Jonathan Spangler is Lecturer in History in the Department of History and Economic History at the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.

• Contents: Introduction; Introducing the foreign princes; The Lorraine-Guise dynastic identity: history, image, property and display; At court: Lorraines and royal favour; The corporate merger: marriage alliances, contracts and widowhood; Lorraines in the courts: successions and the French judiciary; Being everywhere ... in the South: provincial interests in the Vivarais; Lorraines on the borders and in the service of foreign monarchs; Conclusion; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.

'The Society of Princes gives dynastic history a new lease on life. It demonstrates that individuals in the various constituent lineages of one dynasty of princes étrangers continued through the seventeenth century to look beyond the interests of their immediate families to those of their broad, transnational kinship group as a whole. It restores the princes étrangers (French aristocrats whose titles originated outside the kingdom) to their place alongside the better-known princes du sang and princes légitimés, revealing how semi-sovereign princes with landholdings and alliances in virtually every corner of France and beyond its borders facilitated the Bourbons' own state-building and geographical expansion. Jonathan Spangler's archival expertise yields an unprecedented picture of the intricate ties of blood (including the "matriclan" of bonds between and through women), patronage, marriage patterns, dowager strategies, and manipulations of the law that the men and, significantly, the women of this family parlayed into dynastic success.' Carolyn Lougee Chappell, Stanford University, USA ’Spangler’s work is both original in its aims and highlights important facts surrounding noble dynasties of the early modern period. ... While Spangler’s book is an important work on a powerful family group, it is hoped by this reviewer that it will not only reshape the way we view the dynastic histories of the grandees, but that it will also stimulate similar dynastic studies of lower ranked families. French History 'This monograph will take its place as an important contribution to our understanding of the French - and indeed European - nobility in the early modern period.' Seventeenth Century News