King Louis XIV's investigations into nobility and their impact on the French langues : Provence, Auvergne and France of the Knights of the Order of St. John

Abstract

What was the role of nobility in late seventeenth-century France under the rule of King Louis XIV? How did the old class of nobility, better known as the military nobility, reacted to the rise of the new class of nobility (robe nobility) in Europe? What are the views of different historians on the two classes of nobility? How was the Order of the Knights Hospitaller, especially its three French langues, influenced by the several edicts on nobility issued by Louis XIV between 1664 and 1715? What precautions did the Order of SL John take in order to preserve nobility in its institutions? All these questions will be analysed in this dissertation in order to reconstruct the relationship between the French monarchy, the nobility, and the Order in the late seventeenth century.