DOI 10.51255/2311–603X_2025_1_186

V. V. Shishkin. Unknown letter of Henry III of March 10, 1585: on the eve of the The War
of Three Henrys // Petersburg historical journal, no. 1, 2025, pp. 186–193

Abstract:

The letter of Henry III (1574–1589), the last of Valois, addressed to the French ambassador
in Rome at the papal court, seigneur de Saint-Goart (Gouart). The document was submitted to the Archive of the Saint Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences as a gift on April 14, 2024. This is an order to the ambassador to ask Pope Gregory XIII to approve the royal decision regarding the appointment of a new prior of the Augustinian priory in Perigord, Saint-Etienne Du Peyrat, a certain Elis Patrice. In preparation for a new civil war in France, which remained in history under the name The War of Three Henrys (1585–1589), the king placed in secular and church posts, at court and in the field, the persons who were certainly devoted to him. Henry III removed from the post of prior a supporter of the Dukes of Guise, political opponents of the king, Bishop of Amiens. The reconstruction of events, according to the dorsal
notes on the back of the letter, allows to understand the dramatic history of the approval of the royal decision, which eventually took place in 1586. This was due to the expulsion of Saint-Goart from Rome on the orders of the new Pope Sixtus V, and his triumphant return a few months after the restoration of relations between Henry III and the Holy See, under a new name and in a new status, Marquis de Pisany.

Key words: History of France of the 17th century, Holy See, Religious wars, Henry III, Sixtus V, seigneur de Saint-Goart.

Author:

Shishkin, Vladimir Vladimirovich — Dr. in History, senior researcher, St. Petersburg Institute of
History of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg, Russia).
E-mail: VladimirGenghis@mail.ru
ORCID: 0000-0002-5163-5474

References:

DE WITTE C.-M. Notes sur les ambassadeurs de France à Rome et leurs correspondances sous les derniers Valois (1556–1589). In Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome. Moyen-Age, Temps modernes. 1971. Vol. 83. No. 1, pp. 89–121.

Boucher, J. (éd.) Lettres de Henri III, roi de France. T. VI. Paris: Société de l’Histoire de France, 2006.

LYNN M. A. Fabio Mirto Frangipani and papal policy in France: the case of an independent-minded nuncio. In Archivum historiae pontificiae. 1979. Vol. XVII, pp. 197–240.

МALOV V. N. Proiskhozhdenie sovremennogo pis’ma. Paleografiia frantsuzskikh dokumentov kontsa XV — XVIII v. [The origins of the Modern Writing. Palaeography of French Documents from the late 15th to the 18th Centuries. In Russ.]. Мoscow, Nauka, 1975.

SHISHKIN V. V. “Skhvatit’ korolevu Navarrskuiu”: beglyi dvor Margarity de Valua v 1585–1587 gg.
[“Arrest of the Queen of Navarre”: the Court of Marguerite de Valois in Flight. In Russ.]. In Istoriia: Elektronnyi nauchno-obrazovatel’nyi zhurnal. 2015. Vol. 6, iss. 4 (37). URL: http://history.jes.su/s207987840001006–5–1 (дата обращения 21.05.2024).

UVAROV P. Yu. Frantsiia vo vtoroi polovine XV — XVI veke [France in the Second Half of 15th —
16th Century. In Russ.]. In Vedyushkin V. A., Yussim M. A. (eds.). Vsemirnaia istoriia. T. 3: Mir v rannee Novoe vremia. Moscow, Nauka, 2013. P. 153–157.

Перейти к полноэкранному режиму

Similar Posts

|

PHJ №1 (45) 2025 — T. A. Bazarova. PETRINE ST. PETERSBURG AND THE WATER ELEMENT

The waters of the Neva and the Gulf of Finland were a source of danger for the inhabitants of Petersburg. In the city, an alarm was organized for the time of the opening and freezing of the Neva, as well as for the beginning of the flooding. The article analyses the decrees of Peter I and the orders of the local administration, which were designed to minimize the damage, and established standards for the construction of new buildings and piers. The article is accompanied by a letter of the Kotlin commander Vasily Poroshin on the consequences of the flood of 5 November 1721.

| |

PHJ № 3 (47) 2025 — K. V. Godunov. DEBATES ON CIVIL WAR DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR

This article examines how the debates that took place during the First World War influenced the dissemination of the concept of “civil war” and the impact this had on the political situation of the time. Particular attention is paid to discussions within the radical socialist milieu. It is demonstrated that the proponents of the slogan advocating the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war — first and foremost, V. I. Lenin and his supporters — acted within a specific historical and ideological context. They took into account the earlier discursive articulations of civil war as well as the experiences of socialists in other countries, particularly the rhetoric of Karl Liebknecht. Drawing on the views of prominent Bolsheviks such as A. G. Shlyapnikov, A. M. Kollontai, and N. I. Bukharin, the study shows that not all members of the party unequivocally supported Lenin’s call for civil war. Even among Lenin’s prominent allies, interpretations of the slogan varied, with differing views expressed regarding its meaning and practical implementation. Debates about the means of ending the global conflict and about the prospects for revolution and civil war were significant in several respects. During the First World War, the Bolsheviks acquired the reputation of being the “party of civil war”. This image played a major role in various anti-Bolshevik propaganda campaigns in 1917, even though in reality, not all members of the party fully endorsed Lenin’s position. Disputes surrounding the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war contributed to the cultural preparation for internal conflict. The notion of “civil war” gained renewed momentum and expanded its reach; its articulation during the crises of the First World War contributed to the radicalisation of the political situation. These debates among socialists led party activists at various levels — regardless of their agreement or disagreement with the necessity of civil war — to engage with the idea and to participate in the development of a political language centred around violence.

|

PHJ №1 (45) 2025 — A. V. Ushakov. FRAGMENTS FROM THE BOOK ABOUT THE NARVA TRADE NOWGORODFAHRER FROM LÜBECK: FEES ON GOODS EXPORTED FROM NARVA DURING THE LIVONIAN WAR

The article under scrutiny herein examines fragments from a handwritten merchant’s book stored in the archive of the Nowgorodfahrer merchant association, which is one of the funds of the Archive of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck. The book chronicles the commercial activities of a trading corporation in Narva during the Livonian War, providing insights spanning the years 1563 to 1577. The study focuses on the commodity lists for 1563, 1564, 1568 and 1577, which detail the internal charges applied to all goods arriving from Narva in Lübeck. The financial proceeds received from these merchants were allocated towards the organisation of collective commercial activities on behalf of the entire trade association. These activities included the maintenance of warehouses and wharves, the chartering of merchant ships, the remuneration of seafarers, mercenaries, scribes and servants, and the settlement of numerous other expenses. Utilising these records, an analysis was conducted of the product range that was characteristic of Narva exports during the Livonian War. Furthermore, a correlation was identified between fluctuations in the amount charged for these goods and the prevailing political situation in the Baltic region. The appendix to the article presents transcriptions of the studied product lists.

PHJ № 2 (46) 2025 — R. S. Astashkin. ORGANIZATION OF THE TRANSIT TRADE OF THE ARMENIAN COMPANY IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 17TH CENTURY (ON THE QUESTION OF PERSIA’S POSITION)

In 1667, the Armenian family firms based in New Julfa (Persia) were granted trade privileges in Moscow, which included the right to export oriental goods to Europe via the Russian Empire. The subject of this study is the question of the participation of the Persian Safavid state in this trade project. This inquiry is situated within the broader context of the “Russian transit” phenomenon, which is associated with the Russian Empire’s role in the European expansion towards the East. The factual material on the subject of publication was analysed by using the problem-chronological and comparative methods. The trade agreements that regulated the status of the Armenian Company were also studied. In preparing the article, the scientific works of historians, both domestic and foreign, including those with a specialism in the field of historical Iranian studies, were used. The analysis culminated in the formulation of a conclusion regarding the distinctive hybrid character of the accords established between the Russian authorities and the Persian Armenians. The study established that official Persia was not a full participant in these relationships and did not have a significant impact on their development. The hypothesis that the Safavids were uninterested in transferring the export of Persian raw silk to the northern (Russian) direction during the period under review is also put forward. The scientific results obtained can be used to further study the specifics of the Russian-Persian relations in the early modern history and the position of Russia at that time in the international trade system.

| |

PHJ № 3 (47) 2025 — V. V. Lapin. THE ALEXANDROPOLIS FORTRESS IS A EXPANSE OF IMPERIAL INTEGRATION. THE SYMBOLIC ASPECT

The military and political situation in the border regions of the Russian Empire required the construction of fortresses in strategically important points. These fortifications, together with a complex of buildings necessary for the life of the garrison, played a role not only in the defense system against external threats, but also in maintaining the “peace” of the local population. At the same time, the organization of the space of the fortress complexes, their architecture and even the names of the strongholds and their parts (bastions, fronts, gates, etc.) represented imperial messages and carried a significant symbolic load. Near them, suburbs and even cities of various sizes arose, populated mainly by indigenous residents of the national outskirts. The latter, being involuntary witnesses to the manifestations of army routine (housekeeping, military ceremonies, etc.), found themselves in a special cultural space. The significance of the latter was enhanced by the fact that Russian military personnel in peacetime constituted about a third of the population of the city and district, and during the war, the Armenians who settled there found themselves in the minority. The focus is on Alexandropol, which was the only fortress in Transcaucasia, built in the 1830–1850s in the border region of the Armenian region on the site of the Gumry fortification, founded in 1807. Various symbolic messages were addressed primarily “inward” to maintain imperial identity in a foreign cultural environment, but it is impossible to deny that they also influenced the local population and created conditions for imperial integration.

PHJ № 2 (46) 2025 — A. A. Vovin. ROMAN LAW AND THE PSKOV JUDICIAL CHARTER

The article continues a series of two articles co-authored by Alexei Vovin and Natalya Sredinskaya and focuses on the Roman law reception (in its Latin version) in the North-West of Rus’. There is a core text which is at the center of all forementioned publications. The 89 th article of the Pskov Judicial Charter is very close in textual and semantic terms to the corresponding places in the codes of Theodosius and Justinian. This article develops and substantiates the previously expressed idea that the norm of Justinian’s codification could not penetrate into the Pskov Judicial Charter through later Byzantine law codes, whose translations into Church Slavonic were spread in Old Rus’. Accordingly, the 89 th article source, as well as a number of new notions appearing in Pskov Judicial Charter, were produced as a result of borrowing from an unknown Latin-language source that reflected the realities of the code of Justinian or the earlier code of Theodosius. The article also examines another article of the Pskov Judicial Charter (the 91th), whose origin could be probably found in Theodosian Code as well. The final conclusions lead us to a new glance at the origins of the law of the North-West of Rus’ and the extent to which the Old Russian culture experienced the Roman law reception.