The Gargantuan Polity: On the Individual and the Community in the French Renaissance by Michael Randall

MLR, 105.4, 2010 1151 ofNemours, and Louis XI's attempt to indict Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy with a posthumous charge of lese-majeste, are less important as examples of the development of judicial process during the reign than as illustrations of thatkings ability to adapt a judicial process for 'repressive and arbitrary purposes' (pp. 46-47). Commynes himself had a long and generally rancorous experience of judicial processes, partly because of his own intransigence in clinging on to confiscated rights and property. He himself dabbled in conspiracy during the minority of Charles VIII, and was lucky to escape the full rigour of lese-majeste. Blanchard con siders that these experiences made him more alert than other contemporary writers to theways inwhich Louis XI used lese-majeste to justify extraordinary measures. Blanchard raises many interesting ideas born out of his extensive knowledge ofCommynes and his context. The edition itself is clear and valuable, embellished by its user-friendly font and layout. It is accompanied by illuminating notes on the participants and the context of the trial, together with relevant extracts from the Memoires. The Open University Kathleen Daly The Gargantuan Polity: On the Individual and the Community in the French Renaissance. ByMichael Randall. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2008. xii+374 pp.; 5 plates. can$75. ISBN 978-0-8020-9814-6. Montaigne's arriere boutique', with itsconnotations of freedom found in a private interior space, can be seen as symbolizing the emergence of themodern subjective individual. In this thoughtful and scholarly study,Michael Randall suggests that it is in fact political empowerment that defines the nature of individuality in the Renaissance, and he argues that this inner freedom is rather poor compensation for a political freedom that has been lost. Feudal contracts ofmutual obligation between rulers and subjects may have defined individuals only collectively, but they also accorded them a collective political responsibility and public role that would vanish under monarchical absolutism. The Gargantuan Polity therefore sets out to examine literary reflections of the decline of consensual politics founded on discussion and debate. The first two chapters focus on the fifteenth-century schism over whether ecclesiastical power laywith the councils as called at Constance and at Basel, or exclusively with the Pope. Careful analysis of literary responses to the establishment and ultimate loss, with the Concordat of Bologna in 1516, of conciliar power effectivelydemonstrates how poetic practice changes in accordance with the outcome of the debate: an increasing thematic emphasis upon the role of the papacy is shown to correspond to the gradual disappearance of a critical poetic voice. Chapters 3 and 4 further examine how political change affects the poet's functional role. JeanMolinet's criticism of Charles the Bold, whose tyrannical ambitions overrode the restraining power of the Estates General, depends upon an emotional rhetoric that is only possible in an objective, impersonal context. In contrast, Guillaume Cretin's double portrait of Francois I after his defeat 1152 Reviews at Pavia, combining impersonal criticism with personal praise, demonstrates the poet's essential role in disseminating a powerful image of theKing. Chapters 5 and 6 contrast the reactions of Barthelemy de Chasseneuz and Rabelais to the privileging ofwritten royal decrees over spontaneous customary law.Whereas Chasseneuz progresses towards resounding praise for a carefully ordered political hierarchy defined and regulated by an almost divine King, Rabelais resists such royal deification. His polyphonic texts defy Chasseneuz's univocal imposition of meaning and satirize Messire Gaster's deaf tyranny, while asserting the vital role of the institution du prince in the absence of any constitutional restraint upon royal will. The final chapter cites the violence committed against the King's subjects during theWars of Religion as evidence of the irrevocable loss of consensual politics and the royal assumption instead of unilateral responsibility for extirpating diseased sedition from the otherwise healthy body politic. D'Aubigne's bitter condemnation of power thus turned against itself, ignoring itsvictims' appeal to a broken feudal contract, consequently gains furtherpoignancy as a tragic political anachronism. Overall, The Gargantuan Polity is an extremely well researched and persuasive lament for the demise of a more public, community-based definition of the individual. Some superficial criticisms may be...

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