The introduction sets the story of the Perraults against the backdrop of early modern France. It covers the transformation of French culture in the seventeenth century (in its different dimenstion: geographical, social, and institutional, including the rise of academies and salons, the court at Versailles), the history of intellectual families, notions of family strategy, and the use of networks in historical analysis. It also includes an outline of the chapters.
Female religious, especially holders of benefices, made significant contributions to aristocratic family
strategy and fortune in early modern France. This study of members of the wider Montmorency
family in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries demonstrates the financial and political
benefits derived from female benefice holding. Abbey stewards and surintendants of aristocratic
households collaborated in the administration of religious revenues. Montmorency control of Sainte
Trinité, the Abbaye aux Dames, Caen, for over a century was associated with attempts to assert
political influence in Normandy. Conflict ostensibly over religious reform could have a political
dimension. Yet reform could be pursued vigorously by those originally cloistered for mercenary or
political reasons.
The Montmorencys and the Abbey of Sainte Trinité, Caen: Politics, Profit and Reform
