Union Through the Past. Political Instrumentalization, Cultural Practices and Social Issues of the Historical Knowledge within the Libels of the Parisian League (15851594)

From 1585 to 1594, the Parisian League published nearly one thousand libels in which the historical references are numerous and varied. Dedicated to discursive practices and their political or socio-cultural functions, this investigation studies in three stages the uses of the past in the polemical texts produced by the zealous Catholics. Firstly, focusing on the forms and functions of the past, the paper shows how, in both medieval and modern ways, the past constituted an argument and a model that allowed the leaguers to strengthen their interpretation of the present, to accuse their opponents, and even to predict the future and to call for action. In a second phase, the article examines what sources were used by the polemicists to refer to the past in their writings: it shows how these authors, who have received no historical training, mention their references within their libels, and then try to determine the sources that they actually used without quoting them. Finally, the investigation contextualizes these results by proposing, in particular thanks to the concept of symbolic violence, hypotheses about the social stakes of these cultural practices, questioning their consequences on the relationship between the libellists and their readers, as well as the identity of the latter.