4. The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis
reader: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
OPD: 1983
format: 3:35 free audible audiobook (176 pages)
listened: Jan 18-22
rating: 4
genre/style: History theme: random audio
locations: French Pyrenees in the 1560’s
about the author: (1928 – 2023) Davis was Jewish American historian of the early modern period (~1500-1800). She was born and raised in Detroit.

A 16th century story of imposture. After Martin Guerre had left his Gascony town without a word for eight years, a man returns saying he is Martin. He is accepted by Martin's family, including Martin's wife, who has two children by him. Three years later this pseudo-Martin finds himself accused as an imposture by this same family, who take him to court. Remarkably he has the court convinced he is truly Martin, until the real, lost, Martin shows up in court after his 11 years absence. In an era when imprisonment was only of necessity, and not an available punishment, the imposture is executed; and the case makes history for both for the legal complications in marriage, inheritance, identity, and in the nature of truth itself, and of the people involved. The judge was prominent intellectual protestant, later executed during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of Huguenots in 1575. Montaigne was maybe present in the courtroom. He wrote about the case in terms of the uncertain nature of truth.

This 1983 book has some resonance in the popular history. It's Davis's only well-known book, although she authored other serious works. It must have touched something, maybe just along the lines of how Dava Sobel's [Longitude] seemed to appeal to such a broad audience. Davis sees this as a window into the common people of the 16th-century. In Gascony, these are industrious landowning peasants, with mixed Basque and Gascony French Heritages. And the Reformation has a hand in this. The accuser was Protestant in a kind of unofficial way, and town Protestants supported him, and the regional Protestant judge seems swayed a little too; whereas town Catholics, or whatever traditional Christians were called then, tended to condemn him. Davis brings all this up, but she's very curious about Martin Guerre's wife, who obviously embraced this imposture, and then condemned him and went back to the husband who deserted her. The imposture, who was not some dumb bubba, but was very savvy and careful to learn and remember all Martin's obscure details to prove his identity, never criticized her in court. The record is quiet on her feelings.

It's an entertaining read, only 3.5 hours on audio (which typically means about 100 pages).

2024
https://www.librarything.com/topic/356616#8384848 ( )

Cherchez l'homme

This Natalie Zenon-Davis scholarly piece of micro-history, told in 1983 by Princeton University professor Natalie Zenon-Davis traces the life of the sixteenth-century French peasant Arnaud du Tilh who successfully pretended to be another man - Martin Guerre - for three years before being taken to court for identity theft.

Arnaud had arrived in the Pyrenean village of Artigat, claiming to be Martin Guerre - the husband of Bertrande de Rols. Martin had been missing for twelve years. Arnaud convinced Bertrande and other locals that he was Martin.

When challenged and taken to court the talkative Arnaud du Tilh almost convinced the judges that he was Martin Guerre when a man swaggered into the court on a wooden leg, and denounced Arnaud, and reestablished his claim to the identity, property, and wife of Martin Guerre. On 12 September 1560 at a public sentencing attended by Michel de Montaigne. Arnaud was found guilty, confessed and apologized, and was hanged in front of Martin Guerre's house in Artigat four days later.
Contemporaries Guillaume Le Sueur and jurist Jean de Coras who wrote “Arrest Memorable du parlement de Tolose”(1560) documented the trial. Corras was later lynched by a Catholic mob. His book however continued to be published in France.

The trial has.fascinated lawyers, historians and writers. Many learned theologians and philosophers including Michel de Montaigne wrote commentaries, and all were of the opinion that the peasant Arnaud du Tilh was an imposter, a fast talker who had successfully convinced the Guerre’s family and other villagers that he was the long-lost Martin Guerre. Bertrande was almost written out of the retellings until the twentieth century when women questioned whether she had really been taken in by Arnaud. Natalie Zenon-Davis believed Bertrande had silently or explicitly agreed to the fraud because she needed a husband in that society, and she was treated well by the impostor.

I knew the story, but was fascinated by Davis’s account. She brings to life the peasants and their testimonies, and her account of the trials is backed by solid research.

What I found so fascinating was the form of the book - the telling of the tale by recounting the story through the eyes of various contemporaries and later renaissance writers through to the twentieth century.

You’ve probably seen the movie. I encourage you to read the book. ( )

Very readable, very concise, I loved everything about it. We need more slips of history told in 125 pages and not stretched out beyond recognition.

Currently watching the 1982 film. So good. ( )

Short but sweet nonfiction account of the research behind the eponymous movie and true life medieval drama. Goes over the scant sources in some detail and adds reasonable speculation and contexts. Though the ground covered isn't vastly different from the movie version, it's still an enjoyable widening for anyone wanting more about the curious slice of late medieval life. ( )

Really enjoyed reading this book and discussing it in class. ( )