Child sexual abuse was a prevalent problem that appeared before the courts with dramatically incr... more Child sexual abuse was a prevalent problem that appeared before the courts with dramatically increasing frequency in nineteenth-century France. During this period medical experts played a much more influential role in the courts; however, those summoned to intervene in child sexual assault cases not only bolstered but also undermined efforts to bring offenders to justice. Many doctors who could not detect physical traces of sexual abuse concluded that the assault had not occurred and that the child's accusation was false. Furthermore, doctors routinely cast moral judgments on those identified as victims of sexual abuse. The understandings of childhood innocence that engendered new efforts to combat child sexual abuse were called into question by the simultaneous rise of medicolegal experts, whose frequent negative findings led many to discount accusations of abuse and to maintain that children, particularly girls and working-class children, were not as innocent as they seemed.
Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 2017
L'histoire du mariage à l'époque de la Révolution française a connu, ces dernières années, un ren... more L'histoire du mariage à l'époque de la Révolution française a connu, ces dernières années, un renouveau 1 dont il n'est pas certain que nous ayons, en France, mesuré tous les enjeux. Quelques livres et articles importants parus sur la question, principalement publiés aux États-Unis 2 , n'ont pas été l'objet d'une traduction – et ce n'est pas toujours du fait des maisons d'édition françaises 3. Ce forum s'offre donc comme un moyen pour donner une plus grande visibilité à quelques travaux américains importants, y compris ceux qui sont encore en cours, sur le mariage en France à l'époque de la Révolution. Pour ce faire, nous avons choisi de faire dialoguer, comme le veut le principe du forum dans ces pages des Annales, quatre historiennes ayant placé le mariage au centre de leurs recherches.
As revolutionaries increasingly associated civic virtue and citizenship with men’s identities as ... more As revolutionaries increasingly associated civic virtue and citizenship with men’s identities as fathers, the celibate priest’s place in the French nation became contested and precarious. Radical revolutionaries relied more and more often on marriage, rather than the ecclesiastical oath, as a litmus test for distinguishing the “patriot priest” from the politically suspect priest. They sought not only to incorporate priests into the nation through marriage but also to transform priests, whose celibacy they viewed as a flagrant violation of the laws of nature, into ideal pères de famille and paragons of public and private virtue. During the Revolution, marriage became an antidote to the social crime of celibacy and a civic duty for all priests.
This article examines the fashion for dressing à la grecque among elite women in late Directorial... more This article examines the fashion for dressing à la grecque among elite women in late Directorial and Consular France. The discourse on Greek fashion served multiple, competing agendas. Neoclassical fashion presented opportunities for women's self-fashioning and agency as well as for reifying and essentializing femininity. Laying claim to the political and artistic virtues associated with the grandeur of classical antiquity, women who adopted neoclassical dress took on roles as arbiters of taste and aesthetics and as works of art themselves.
The Science of Proof traces the rise of forensic medicine in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-cent... more The Science of Proof traces the rise of forensic medicine in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France and examines its implications for our understanding of expert authority. Tying real life cases to broader debates, the book analyzes how new forms of medical and scientific knowledge, many of which were pioneered in France, were contested, but ultimately accepted, and applied to legal problems and the administration of justice. The growing authority of medical experts in the French legal arena was nonetheless subject to sharp criticism and scepticism. The professional development of medicolegal expertise and its influence in criminal courts sparked debates about the extent to which it could reveal truth, furnish legal proof, and serve justice. Drawing on a wide base of archival and printed sources, Claire Cage reveals tensions between uncertainty about the reliability of forensic evidence and a new confidence in the power of scientific inquiry to establish guilt, innocence, and legal responsibility.
In Enlightenment and revolutionary France, new and pressing arguments emerged in the long debate ... more In Enlightenment and revolutionary France, new and pressing arguments emerged in the long debate over clerical celibacy. Appeals for the abolition of celibacy were couched primarily in the language of nature, social utility, and the patrie. The attack only intensified after the legalization of priestly marriage during the Revolution, as marriage and procreation were considered patriotic duties. Some radical revolutionaries who saw celibacy as a crime against nature and the nation aggressively promoted clerical marriage by threatening unmarried priests with deportation, imprisonment, and even death. After the Revolution, political and religious authorities responded to the vexing problem of reconciling the existence of several thousand married French priests with the formal reestablishment of Roman Catholicism and clerical celibacy.
Unnatural Frenchmen examines how this extremely divisive issue shaped religious politics, the lived experience of French clerics, and gendered citizenship. Drawing on a wide base of printed and archival material, including thousands of letters that married priests wrote to the pope, historian Claire Cage highlights individual as well as ideological struggles. Unnatural Frenchmen provides important insights into how conflicts over priestly celibacy and marriage have shaped the relationship between sexuality, religion, and politics from the age of Enlightenment to today, while simultaneously revealing the story of priestly marriage to be an inherently personal and deeply human one.
Child sexual abuse was a prevalent problem that appeared before the courts with dramatically incr... more Child sexual abuse was a prevalent problem that appeared before the courts with dramatically increasing frequency in nineteenth-century France. During this period medical experts played a much more influential role in the courts; however, those summoned to intervene in child sexual assault cases not only bolstered but also undermined efforts to bring offenders to justice. Many doctors who could not detect physical traces of sexual abuse concluded that the assault had not occurred and that the child's accusation was false. Furthermore, doctors routinely cast moral judgments on those identified as victims of sexual abuse. The understandings of childhood innocence that engendered new efforts to combat child sexual abuse were called into question by the simultaneous rise of medicolegal experts, whose frequent negative findings led many to discount accusations of abuse and to maintain that children, particularly girls and working-class children, were not as innocent as they seemed.
Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 2017
L'histoire du mariage à l'époque de la Révolution française a connu, ces dernières années, un ren... more L'histoire du mariage à l'époque de la Révolution française a connu, ces dernières années, un renouveau 1 dont il n'est pas certain que nous ayons, en France, mesuré tous les enjeux. Quelques livres et articles importants parus sur la question, principalement publiés aux États-Unis 2 , n'ont pas été l'objet d'une traduction – et ce n'est pas toujours du fait des maisons d'édition françaises 3. Ce forum s'offre donc comme un moyen pour donner une plus grande visibilité à quelques travaux américains importants, y compris ceux qui sont encore en cours, sur le mariage en France à l'époque de la Révolution. Pour ce faire, nous avons choisi de faire dialoguer, comme le veut le principe du forum dans ces pages des Annales, quatre historiennes ayant placé le mariage au centre de leurs recherches.
As revolutionaries increasingly associated civic virtue and citizenship with men’s identities as ... more As revolutionaries increasingly associated civic virtue and citizenship with men’s identities as fathers, the celibate priest’s place in the French nation became contested and precarious. Radical revolutionaries relied more and more often on marriage, rather than the ecclesiastical oath, as a litmus test for distinguishing the “patriot priest” from the politically suspect priest. They sought not only to incorporate priests into the nation through marriage but also to transform priests, whose celibacy they viewed as a flagrant violation of the laws of nature, into ideal pères de famille and paragons of public and private virtue. During the Revolution, marriage became an antidote to the social crime of celibacy and a civic duty for all priests.
This article examines the fashion for dressing à la grecque among elite women in late Directorial... more This article examines the fashion for dressing à la grecque among elite women in late Directorial and Consular France. The discourse on Greek fashion served multiple, competing agendas. Neoclassical fashion presented opportunities for women's self-fashioning and agency as well as for reifying and essentializing femininity. Laying claim to the political and artistic virtues associated with the grandeur of classical antiquity, women who adopted neoclassical dress took on roles as arbiters of taste and aesthetics and as works of art themselves.
The Science of Proof traces the rise of forensic medicine in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-cent... more The Science of Proof traces the rise of forensic medicine in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France and examines its implications for our understanding of expert authority. Tying real life cases to broader debates, the book analyzes how new forms of medical and scientific knowledge, many of which were pioneered in France, were contested, but ultimately accepted, and applied to legal problems and the administration of justice. The growing authority of medical experts in the French legal arena was nonetheless subject to sharp criticism and scepticism. The professional development of medicolegal expertise and its influence in criminal courts sparked debates about the extent to which it could reveal truth, furnish legal proof, and serve justice. Drawing on a wide base of archival and printed sources, Claire Cage reveals tensions between uncertainty about the reliability of forensic evidence and a new confidence in the power of scientific inquiry to establish guilt, innocence, and legal responsibility.
In Enlightenment and revolutionary France, new and pressing arguments emerged in the long debate ... more In Enlightenment and revolutionary France, new and pressing arguments emerged in the long debate over clerical celibacy. Appeals for the abolition of celibacy were couched primarily in the language of nature, social utility, and the patrie. The attack only intensified after the legalization of priestly marriage during the Revolution, as marriage and procreation were considered patriotic duties. Some radical revolutionaries who saw celibacy as a crime against nature and the nation aggressively promoted clerical marriage by threatening unmarried priests with deportation, imprisonment, and even death. After the Revolution, political and religious authorities responded to the vexing problem of reconciling the existence of several thousand married French priests with the formal reestablishment of Roman Catholicism and clerical celibacy.
Unnatural Frenchmen examines how this extremely divisive issue shaped religious politics, the lived experience of French clerics, and gendered citizenship. Drawing on a wide base of printed and archival material, including thousands of letters that married priests wrote to the pope, historian Claire Cage highlights individual as well as ideological struggles. Unnatural Frenchmen provides important insights into how conflicts over priestly celibacy and marriage have shaped the relationship between sexuality, religion, and politics from the age of Enlightenment to today, while simultaneously revealing the story of priestly marriage to be an inherently personal and deeply human one.
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Unnatural Frenchmen examines how this extremely divisive issue shaped religious politics, the lived experience of French clerics, and gendered citizenship. Drawing on a wide base of printed and archival material, including thousands of letters that married priests wrote to the pope, historian Claire Cage highlights individual as well as ideological struggles. Unnatural Frenchmen provides important insights into how conflicts over priestly celibacy and marriage have shaped the relationship between sexuality, religion, and politics from the age of Enlightenment to today, while simultaneously revealing the story of priestly marriage to be an inherently personal and deeply human one.
Unnatural Frenchmen examines how this extremely divisive issue shaped religious politics, the lived experience of French clerics, and gendered citizenship. Drawing on a wide base of printed and archival material, including thousands of letters that married priests wrote to the pope, historian Claire Cage highlights individual as well as ideological struggles. Unnatural Frenchmen provides important insights into how conflicts over priestly celibacy and marriage have shaped the relationship between sexuality, religion, and politics from the age of Enlightenment to today, while simultaneously revealing the story of priestly marriage to be an inherently personal and deeply human one.