Cultural Capital in Corporate and Memorial Practices of French Royal Officers

Abstract

The paper concerns donations of books on wills of Royal officers in Paris at the turn of 14th– 15th centuries. The subject of the article relies on new approaches to the analysis of the place of culture in social groups formation of medieval society. Through donations of the books the specificity of French officials as social group, including methods of their consolidation and their identity, is revealed. The study is based on the only surviving register of wills in the archives of the Parliament of Paris. From the entire body of 236 wills, there have been selected those written by Royal officers, former or current (121 texts). The book played an important role in the lifestyle and everyday reality of the officials. Many of them had storage space for books. Libraries of the officials were increased by the books taken as pledge, for debts, as payment for services. The main feature of the donations was a clear pragmatism of the intention of giving the book to professionals. These recipients were close relatives of the testator, especially students, his colleagues, executors and friends. Such donations show a strategy for the preservation and augmentation of cultural capital within a closed society of Royal officers. However, the main purpose of donations of the books and other orders under the will, was the salvation of the soul of the testator, and preservation of memory about him. The use of the books shows the specificity of identity and corporate memory of the French bureaucracy.