944.03 DUI Duindam, Jeroen. Vienna and Versailles : the Courts of Europe's Dynastic Rivals, 1550 - 1780 / J. Duindam. - Cambridge ; New York ; Melbourne : Cambridge University Press, 2003. - 349 p. : il. - (New Studies in European History). - Bibliography : p. 328 - 342. - ISBN 0-521-71476-1. - Текст : непосредственный. Index : p. 343 - 349
Prelude : part I The household on the eve of the early modern age Contours : part II Numbers and costs Status and income Court life : part III A calendar of court life Ceremony and order at court: an unending pursuit Power : part IV Levels and forms of power at court The court as focus of the realm
This book brings vividly to life the courtiers and servants of the imperial court in Vienna and the royal court at Paris-Versailles from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, drawing together a wealth of unpublished material in a comparative context. Staff, numbers, costs, and hierarchies; daily routines and ceremonies; court favourites and the nature of rulership; the integrative and centripetal forces of the central courtly establishment: all are seen in a longterm, comparative perspective that highlights both the similarities of the two courts and the distinctiveness of the developments in France and the Habsburg lands. In the process, most conventional views of each court - and of court life in general - are challenged, and a fresh interpretation emerges. Finally, by relocating the household in the heart of the early modern state, "Vienna and Versailles" forces us to rethink the process of state building and the notion of "absolutism"
