Châteaux & spectacles

What makes it possible to better understand a castle’s history? According to Robert Hérin, professor of Social Geography at the University of Caen, the answer is “the shows, of course, the entertainments, the festivities, the receptions, the gatherings, the performances, the pleasures – so many terms to explore the experiences of the multiple relationships between castles and spectacles. Among other possible proceedings, three themes are compared to account for the organisation of castle societies and the shows held there: spaces, times, social relations, and the games and issues of power (…) Reflections on the relationship between the castle and the shows open perspectives on societies and their changes. The social components of successive eras – nobles, bourgeois, artists, and people of the cities and villages – appear at random or in full light and reveal, by locating them in space and time, the social relationships according to which the societies they form are organised…”

In the 1970s, in the heyday of historical anthropology and the New History, with the development of the history of mentalities and the imaginary, the history of festivals and shows enjoyed its glory days. Since the beginning of the 2000s, new approaches, especially in medieval and contemporary history, have been developed by literary scholars and historians. The show is thus part of the ceremony of power, with castles, at the heart of aristocratic sociability, serving both to support the sovereignty and to create a counter-image. The book Châteaux et spectacles is in keeping with these perspectives by approaching these themes through the prism of history, archaeology, literary studies, and all forms of art and live performances found within the perimeter of castle residences and their surroundings, right up to the present day. Indeed, year after year, spectacular stagings multiply in castles to invite tourists to these patrimonial places.