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Author Loiselle, Kenneth, 1975- author.

Title Brotherly love : freemasonry and male friendship in Enlightenment France / Kenneth Loiselle
Published Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2014

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Description 1 online resource
Series EBL-Schweitzer
Contents The masonic utopia of friendship -- Friendship in ritual -- Confronting the specter of sodomy -- "New but true friends" : the friendship network of Philippe-Valentin Bertin du Rocheret -- Friendship in the age of sensibility -- Friendship under fire : freemasonry in the French Revolution
Summary Friendship, an acquired relationship primarily based on choice rather than birth, lay at the heart of Enlightenment preoccupations with sociability and the formation of the private sphere. In Brotherly Love, Kenneth Loiselle argues that Freemasonry is an ideal arena in which to explore the changing nature of male friendship in Enlightenment France. Freemasonry was the largest and most diverse voluntary organization in the decades before the French Revolution. At least fifty thousand Frenchmen joined lodges, the memberships of which ranged across the social spectrum from skilled artisans to the highest ranks of the nobility. Loiselle argues that men were attracted to Freemasonry because it enabled them to cultivate enduring friendships that were egalitarian and grounded in emotion. Drawing on scores of archives, including private letters, rituals, the minutes of lodge meetings, and the speeches of many Freemasons, Loiselle reveals the thought processes of the visionaries who founded this movement, the ways in which its members maintained friendships both within and beyond the lodge, and the seemingly paradoxical place women occupied within this friendship community. Masonic friendship endured into the tumultuous revolutionary era, although the revolutionary leadership suppressed most of the lodges by 1794. Loiselle not only examines the place of friendship in eighteenth-century society and culture but also contributes to the history of emotions and masculinity, and the essential debate over the relationship between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references
Notes In English
Print version record
Subject Freemasonry -- France -- History -- 18th century
Male friendship -- France -- History -- 18th century
Enlightenment -- France
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- General.
HISTORY -- Europe -- France.
Enlightenment
Freemasonry
Male friendship
Manners and customs
SUBJECT France -- Social life and customs -- 18th century. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh92005863
Subject France
Genre/Form Electronic books
History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2019721513
ISBN 9780801454868
0801454867
0801454875
9780801454875