Download or read book Images of Kingship in Early Modern France written by Adrianna E. Bakos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-23 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Louis XI, known as "The Spider King" because he wove many intricate plots, lives on in popular imagination primarily as a villain and a cruel, cunning, rather unscrupulous character. Absolutists fled to his banner whilst constitutionalists reviled him as a rapacious totalitarian murderer. In Images of Kingship in Early Modern France, Adrianna Bakos uses the changing nature of Louis XI's historical reputation to explore the intellectual and political climate of early modern France. Using Louis XI's historical reputation as a prism for fresh investigation, Adrianna Bakos offers new, more complex interpretations of the ideological landscape of early modern France. Images of Kingship in Early Modern France is an important contribution to European historiography and to debates on historical versus political interpretations of Kingship.