The Return of Martin Guerre

by Natalie Zemon Davis

Book Overview

The clever peasant Arnaud du Tilh had almost persuaded the learned judges at the Parlement of Toulouse when, on a summer's day in 1560, a man swaggered into the court on a wooden leg, denounced Arnaud, and reestablished his claim to the identity, property, and wife of Martin Guerre. The astonishing case captured the imagination of the continent. Told and retold over the centuries, the story of Martin Guerre became a legend, still remembered in...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674766911
• ISBN13: 9780674766914
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Great "Micro- History," a new genre in history

At first, Natalie Davis collaborated with the director Daniel Vigne on his film, but she became dissatisfied by how many elements of the story never made it into the movie. Her book adds specific details she thought central to the story; such as, the Guerre's Basque roots, Bertrande first meeting Arnaud du Tilh at an inn outside of the village, and Bertrande's reasons for collaborating with the imposter. Davis' story affords her audience a rare glimpse into the world of peasant life in sixteenth century France. Historically, there are only a few times when the everyday lives of the lower social classes receive comment in history or literature. Students of the humanities have only a few primary source books to examine. The Domesday Book is a collection of census records from eleventh century England. The Canterbury Tales are a fourteenth century collection of tales describing the lives of religious pilgrims in England, authored by Geoffrey Chaucer. The Decameron is also a fourteenth century collection of stories, this time from Italy, written by Giovanni Boccaccio. Davis' story focuses on Bertrande de Rols and her place in sixteenth century society, especially as a wife. Bertrande was married to Martin Guerre who was a young peasant of Basque heritage. Both Bertrande and Martin were in their early teens during a time when marriage customs for peasants was changing in Europe. For several years, these two very young kids have trouble consummating their marriage. Davis speculates that Bertrande may have been happy with this circumstance since it gave her a chance to enjoy adolescence and be free of the drudgery of motherhood and all the duties that went with it. This becomes evident by the fact that she refuses to annul her marriage at her parent's insistence. A few years go by before Bertrande conceives and gives birth to a son - her first foray into adulthood. Davis explains how Bertrande, like other peasant women, became even more aware of the male dominated world in which she lived. This is evident by the particle "de" in her name, which was a custom in the area where she lived depicting the social and legal connection female peasants had to the men in their families. She was subordinate to her father, her husband, and finally her widowed mother and her uncle turned stepfather. Frances and Joseph Geis illuminate in detail the customs of family and marriage during this time in history. During the Middle Ages, most peasants did not have formal marriage vows conducted in church. Instead, they vowed to each other to live as common law husband and wife. Formality was not necessary since peasants did not own property; they worked the lands of the nobility as tenant farmers. Marital mores change in the sixteenth century due to the peasant's ability to own land, which in turn causes parents to insist on having more control over their children's marital choices. In 1548, Martin runs away from his village of Artigat, France to joi

History With Academic Rigour and Real Literary Worth

The Return of Martin Guerre is not a regular history book. It is extremely short and extremely readable: a tale of intrigue; muddled and contradictory motivations; ethnic assimilation, sexual deficiencies; witch craft; and the stolen identity of a peasant by another on the backdrop of the Protestant reformation in France, Natalie Z. Davis's account of this utterly weird case of sixteenth century fraud proves the old dictum that historians never tire of explaining to incredulous novelists and an unfortunately indifferent public: truth is stranger than fiction. The life of Martin Guerre would have left nearly no evidence of any existence, and have been of little use for any historian, were it not for the fact that he abandoned his young wife and son when he was in his early twenties for motivations that the modern historian can only guess at. Wanting adventure and release from a matrimonial bond that had been established for him at an extremely young age by his wife's and his own parents, young Guerre made his way into the service Spanish nobility and then fought in the Spanish wars in modern Flanders and Holland, where he would loose a leg. This, in and of itself, is unremarkable. There were likely many gimps made by their service in Armies of Spain in the sixteenth century. The utter weirdness of this situation only begins with the entrance of Arnaud du Tilh. From a modern standpoint, it is difficult to imagine that anyone who knew Martin Guerre would have mistaken Arnaud du Tilh for him for any great length of time. Martin was tall and slender whereas Arnaud was short and stocky; Martin was athletic whereas Arnaud was a lazybones; Martin was difficult and irascible where Arnaud was generally likable; Martin was a native speaker of Basque whereas Arnaud's first tongue was French. The only thing that Arnaud and Martin really had in common was that neither was happy enough in the life they were born into to remain where they were. The question becomes then, how could Arnaud possibly hope to, and very successfully, appropriate the identity of Martin Guerre? Davis gives many reasonable explanations. First, this was an age before photography and therefore only flawed memory could serve the purpose of knowing what Martin looked like among peasants too poor to have considered portraiture. Second, the Basque tradition which Martin Guerre grew up placed a powerful emphasis on the importance of family and seeing him return would have been, even after a less than honorable exit nearly a decade before, a nearly unadulterated joy. Finally, Davis points out what is the truly amazing about Arnaud is that he had, "a memory an actor would envy (35)." Though this mechanism alone, Davis believes, Arnaud is able to tap into a myriad number of stories which he is able to consciously able to craft into a believable mask of Martin Guerre--one that would, seemingly, fool Martin Guerre's friends, family, and his wife for several years. Even more amazing

Reflective Writing

What is real? How do we really judge other people? How do we know what we know? How do perceptions influence social interactions? These are the kinds of reflective questions this book causes you to think about. Set in 16th century France, this case of mistaken identity, where one person assumes the identity of another, is intentionally ambiguous in drawing the reader in to make some personal judgments independent of the author. This masterful technique requires an active reader. Chapter 10 describes one of the judges in the case after it was appealed. He went on to write a book on the matter. Jean de Coras was a Christian scholar, a writer, lawyer, romantic, and communicator. Fortunately for us the author included this excerpt on him, as he was a character who made a mark that has survived over time. Overall this is a book that will make you consider yourself and how you treat other people. It's a healthy form of reflection that is designed to help you consider things you might otherwise overlook.

A historical account that reads like a novel

"The Return of Martin Guerre" is a suprisingly simple book about a court case that occurred in the Sixteenth Century. The book is composed of a variety of chapters that cover the background of those involved, the land and industry of the time, the actual court case, and even the background of those that wrote about, and later dramaticized the case. The book itself is very easy to read, and could probably be enjoyed by readers of any age. Unlike a previous reviewer, I did not think that there was too much French in this book, and only one or two lines were left untranslated (very simple ones at that). One little annoyance I constantly found was the tendancy of the author to assume things. She often claims that if something was done in the sixteenth century, then it was also most certainly done by Bertrande, Arnaud, or Martin. One example that stood out would be the taunts that she claimed Martin suffered as a result of neglecting the marriage bed of his wife (with no actual evidence). Nonetheless, it is these assumptions that make "The Return of Martin Guerre" interesting to read, because they do teach the reader a little bit about peasant life at the time. I reccommend this book to all readers. In particular, I feel that a younger reader would enjoy it due to its simplistic, but lyrical writing style, and its carefully woven introduction to the history of sixteenth century France.

Not only Entertaining, but a New Genre of History

Natalie Zemon Davis? book The Return Of Martin Guerre is a finely detailed, readable and well-researched account of the famous Martin Guerre and his impostor, Arnauld du Tilh. But even more than simply outlining the facts of the story, Davis also uses her research to enlighten us on the roles of different family members in 16th Century rural French life, the politics of family life and peasant life in general, and the role of the growing shift from Catholicism to Protestantism among the elite as well as the peasant classes. In relation to family and marriage life, Davis uses Bertrande de Rols, Martin Guerre?s wife, as an example of a strong, virtuous woman with familial duty and an obstinate nature. Davis uses this characterization to explain how de Rols was not a weak-minded woman who was so easily duped by her missing husband?s impostor, but was rather a woman who was in love and used her strength in order to fascillitate her new relationship with Arnauld du Tilh: ?Either by explicit or tacit agreement, she helped him become her husband.? Bertrande de Rols, according to Davis, is an example of the more broad-minded and less misogynist peasant society of the village of Artigat in 16th Century France. Through Bertrande de Rols, learn about how surprisingly fair the law was towards women: ?The testaments in the area around Artigat rarely benefit one child but instead provide dowries for the daughters....(If there are only daughters, the property is divided equally among them)? (11) Natalie Zemon Davis? The Return Of Martin Guerre is also a deeper historical chronicle of changes in the shift from French Catholicism to the ?new religion? of Protestantism. She uses the ?new Martin Guerre? and Bertrande de Rols? entire relationship to characterize the relaxing religious laws that were seeping into courtrooms and the higher classes as well as the fields and the peasant classes. Davis argues that the new religion might have been of interest to the new Martin Guerre and Bertrande de Rols because it supported their illicit relationship more than Catholicism. (48) When doubt about the new Martin Guerre?s real identity began to unsettle the village of Artigat, Davis writes that the local supporters of the new protestant religion would have tended to believe the new Martin Guerre, whereas the Catholics sided with the accusations of false identity from his uncle, Pierre Guerre. Changes in religious affiliation, however, are no clearer than in the case of the Jean de Coras, the reporter and judge with respect to the accusations brought under the new Martin Guerre. Jean de Coras was proven to have had Protestant ties, and was eventually killed for them. (100) However, he was also a very learned, educated, and passionate man with an upstanding career in law and, after the case of Martin Guerre, the literary world. The idea that someone of so high a rank embraced the new religion shows that its influence at the time cannot be ignored. The film vers