The chiming city: Catholic ritual and French identity in Avignon on the eve of the French Revolution, 1768--1791

The southern French city of Avignon lies along the Rhone River about 50 miles north from where it meets the Mediterranean Sea. Until 1791 this city and the surrounding territory were a papal enclave. In this dissertation, I examine the transition from papal to French authority. I am arguing that this transition was under way well before the French Revolution, since the monarchy had long been represented symbolically in Avignon, and that Catholic rituals were one of the primary means through which the townspeople in Avignon negotiated between these two sovereigns.;My dissertation has relevance for two historiographical issues, the first of which is national identity and state building. Because Avignon was not part of the French kingdom for most of its history, the administrative apparatus of the absolutist state had not direct impact there and therefore the standard top-down model of identity formation does not apply here. I am demonstrating how the multiple layers of meaning embedded in Catholic rituals made them an excellent medium for representing royal authority in Avignon. The ambiguous nature of these ceremonies made it possible to articulate loyalty to the monarchy without calling the city's fidelity to the papacy into question.;The second issue is the role of religious ritual in the development of the secular state. Many historians have assumed that Catholic ritual was on the wane in France in the late eighteenth century, and that it was becoming less prominent in political discourse. I am showing that these rituals still had much vitality during these years, and that it was still an important component of how political authority and urban identity were represented. As a repetitive act that grounded Avignon's community in a stable, permanent, cosmological reality, these rituals helped assimilate political change in Avignon by providing a backdrop of continuity against which it took place.;My dissertation offers new perspectives of the beginnings of modernity by showing the overlap of change and continuity in this period, and suggesting that the break with older modes of political representation was not as sharp during the French Revolution as many would suppose.