Review of Natalie Zemon Davis' "The Return of Martin Guerre"

[The above video is mostly a reading of the text below, with an occasional aside thrown in for good measure as they strike me as relevant.  I welcome questions, comments, or concerns about the material contained in this video.]

Natalie Zemon Davis, along with the likes of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Carlo Ginzburg, both of whom she explicitly acknowledges in “The Return of Martin Guerre,” has carved out a relatively new niche in the academic history. Instead of writing about the movers and shakers, the kings or emperors, or large-scale religious change, she writes here specifically focused on a few families in mid-sixteenth century France. The reputations made by the people that exist within the covers were not the result of high birth or diplomatic achievement. The only reason the name “Martin Guerre” has any resonance to our ears is because his story is perhaps the most incredible since that of Odysseus. Except Guerre’s has the virtue of being historical fact. Without any of the historiographic jargon that we may have come cynically to expect, Davis has wonderfully harnessed most of the elements that allow the causal reader to fully appreciate the story of Martin Guerre.

Not long after moving from the Basque village of Hendaye to Artigat with his father Sanxi and his uncle Pierre, Martin Guerre, aged 13, marries a certain Bertrande de Rols. After a period of restlessness and sexual impotence, they conceive a child (also named Sanxi); soon afterwards, he gets into a dispute with his father and runs away, never to return. From this point on, there are intermittent lengthy discussions of property transfer in France at the time, specifically detailing how Basque tradition stipulates that the property moves from Bertrande to Pierre (since Sanxi the elder had already died). 

In another world, Arnaud du Tilh (aka “Pansette,” or “The Belly,” for his well-defined paunch), eager to remove himself from the monotony of the seigniory of Sajas, joins Henri II’s army. In one of the weaker and more speculative parts of the book, Davis here guesses that Arnaud and Martin might have both met somewhere while in the service of Henri II (in whose service the real Martin might have lost a leg), traded intimate life stories and history to such an extent that Arnaud could then arrive in Artigat, proclaim himself the long-lost Martin Guerre, and insert himself into lives of Pierre Guerre and Bertrande, who quickly learns of du Tilh’s imposture, but outwardly fervently maintains that he is really Martin Guerre. Pierre, however, decides to form an inquest into Pansette’s identity, suspecting something is out of place. 

The inquest turns into a trial where witnesses – Martin’s friends, family, doctors, neighbors – cannot agree on his identity. In fact, Pansette is such a good impersonator that about one-third of them say he is Martin, another third say he isn’t, and the remaining refuse to comment, being too baffled or fearing retribution from a member of the village. He is found guilty, but appeals to an illustrious court in Toulouse, where the author of one of the first accounts of the story, Jean de Coras, sits as a judge. After careful consideration, he overturns the ruling of the lower court, and announces Pansette innocent. At that moment, a man with a wooden leg enters the courtroom claiming to be Martin Guerre. One by one, everyone begins to recognize “the newcomer” (as Pansette calls him), and within a matter of hours Martin, who has been gone for a several years, regains his reputation, family, and friends inside the courtroom. Coras sees the error of his previous judgment and sentences Pansette to, first, an “amende honorable” (a traditional French assignation of culpability) and then death by hanging (a punishment deeply tied to avarice in the medieval imagination). 

Davis ends again on a speculative note, suggesting that perhaps Coras found sympathy with Pansette because of their common sympathy for Reformation ideas (Coras was and remained fairly liberal for the time). Given the time period, there were countless accusations slung back and forth of faithlessness and apostasy. However, the book is much too short and this part in particular too underdeveloped to seriously support this idea. 

Interesting, too, is what Davis never explicitly takes much time to discuss, but nevertheless lurks beneath the surface: ideas of identity, gender, property acquisition, incipient capitalism, and belonging in sixteenth-century France. So, while a causal reader can enjoy it for its unique historical cache, those whose interest is more academic have a lot to unpack, too. For those interested in enjoying the latter approach, I recommend a reading in tandem with Valentine Groebner’s “Who Are You?: Identification, Deception, and Surveillance in Early Modern Europe,” which takes the time to fill out some of the undercurrents in Davis’ thought which she only alluded to.