Annette Finley-Croswhite, Associate Professor of History Department of History, Old Dominion University
Prof. Finley-Croswhite earned her B.A. degree from the University of Richmond where she graduated magna cum laude with Honors in history in 1981. She pursued graduate work at Emory University where she worked with the late J. Russell Major and received her Ph.D. in 1991. She has been a member of the History Department at Old Dominion University since 1991 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1997. She is currently the Graduate Program Director for the M.A. Program in History. Prof. Finley-Croswhite's primary field of scholarship is early modern European history. Within this context she specializes in French urban and religious history and is primarily a social/political/cultural historian. She also has a strong interest in medical history. Her course offerings cover the early modern period, urban history, the history of medicine and disease, and historical theory. Prof. Finley-Croswhite's scholarly research has been supported by a number of grant-giving agencies including the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her first monograph, Henry IV and the Towns: The Pursuit of Legitimacy in French Urban Society, 1589-1610 was published in 1999 by Cambridge University Press. Prof. Finley-Croswhite is currently at work on a second book on the French Catholic League, 1584-1598 which is both a synthesis of what has been written on the subject and an attempt to identify new avenues of research on the period. Listed below are links to pages which describe briefly some of Prof. Finley-Croswhite's scholarly work.
Contact Prof. Finley-Croswhite at: Department of History, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, 23529-0091. Telephone: 757-683-3949; Fax: 757-683-5644; E-mail: acroswhi@odu.edu
Henry IV and the Towns: The Pursuit of Legitimacy in French Urban Society, 1589-1610. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Articles:
"Engendering the Wars of Religion: Female Agency during the Catholic League in Dijon," French Historical Studies 20:2 (April, 1997), 127-54.
"Confederates and Rivals: Picard Urban Alliances during the Catholic League, 1588-1594," Canadian Journal of History/Annales Canadiennes d'Histoire, XXI (December, 1996): 359-76.
"Urban Identity and Transitional Politics: The Transformation of Political Allegiance Inside Amiens Before and After the City's 1594 Capitulation to Henry IV," Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History, 20 (1993): 53-61.
"Ceremonial Reconciliation: Henry IV's Royal Entry into Abbeville, 18 December 1594," Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History, 17 (1990): 96-105.
"Absolutism and Municipal Autonomy: Henry IV and the 1602 Pancarte Revolt in Limoges," in Society and Institutions in Early Modern France. Ed. Mack P. Holt. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992, 80-97.
"Henry IV et les Villes," in Henri IV, le Roi et la Reconstruction du Royaume. Ed. Pierre Tucoo-Chala, Pau: J & D Editions, 1990, 195-205.
Henry IV and the Towns: The Pursuit of Legitimacy in French Urban Society, 1589-1610
This book is the first serious study of Henry IV's relationship with the towns of France, and offers an in-depth analysis of a crucial aspect of his craft of kingship. Set in the context of the later Wars of Religion, it examines Henry's achievement in reforging an alliance with the towns by comparing his relationship with Catholic League, royalist and Protestant towns. Annette Finley-Croswhite focuses on the symbiosis of three key issues: legitimacy, clientage, and absolutism. Henry's pursuit of political legitimacy and his success at winning the support of his urban subjects is traced over the course of his reign. Clientage is examined to show how Henry used patron-client relations to win over the towns and promote acceptance of his rule. By restoring legitimacy to the monarchy, Henry not only ended the religious wars but also strengthened the authority of the crown and laid the foundations of absolutism.
The book is 219 pages in length and contains the following chapters:
Introduction
1. France in the 1580s and 1590s
2. Brokering clemency in 1594: the case of Amiens
3. Henry IV's ceremonial entries: the remaking of a king
4. Henry IV and municipal franchises in Catholic League towns
5. Henry IV and municipal franchises in royalist and Protestant towns
6. Clientage and clemency: the making of municipal officials
7. Urban protest in Poitiers and Limoges: the pancarte riots
8. Municipal finance and debt: the case of Lyons Conclusion:
Henry IV, urban autonomy, and French absolutism
Living at the End of Time: A History of the French Catholic League, 1584-1598 (Working Title for manuscript in progress)
The Catholic League has been described as the final phase of the political and ideological struggle of the French Wars of Religion and a reflection of the collective panic generated by the religious fervor and apocalyptic anxiety many French men and women felt during a period of religious upheaval. There is no general history of the Catholic League in English, however, and so I am at work producing one. The book attempts a synthesis but also seeks to expose areas of League history that remain unexplored. The first chapter will summarize what has been written about the Catholic League. Chapter two will cover the formation of the League and examine it as an institution, an organization, and a religious body/ideology. The urban focus of the League and its institutional base will be the subject of chapter three. Chapter four will cover the military history of the League. Fear, famine, and epidemic disease will be the focus of chapter five. The final chapter will examine the weak institutional base of the urban "Leagues" and trace the demise of the "Holy Union."
Remembering the Wars: Nineteenth-Century Impressions of the Sixteenth Century
This scholarly article examines not only what nineteenth-century historians thought and wrote about the Catholic League and its history, but also explores the "Troubadour" art produced in the nineteenth century that referenced the League for artistic inspiration.
