Dr Mark Bryant

About

I oversee the Medieval and Early Modern (M.E.M.) Degree Programme that I set up in 2014, covering the Crusades to the French Revolution (1100-1800). I teach a wide range of modules (see “Teaching” below) and topics, from Medieval Heresy, Witchcraft, and Magic to the era of Scientific, Enlightenment, and Democratic Revolutions in the 17th & 18th centuries.

Research

My research explores the evolution of the French state and its society in the early modern period and the dynamics of power within it, focusing on politics, religion, the court, warfare and international relations, and the increasingly potent role women played during the second half, 1680-1715, of Louis XIV’s ‘Personal Rule’ that began in 1661. This was an explosive époque because the Sun King, in the process of forcibly forging a glorious new state and refashioning French culture from Versailles, also bitterly offended diverse sections of society and persecuted religious minorities. This inflamed intellectual and public opinion and ignited revolts and rebellions, prompting radical demands for constitutional reform and thus inadvertently laying the seeds for the French Enlightenment.

I am currently working on an article examining the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 (which controversially and disastrously terminated toleration for Protestants introduced in 1598 to end the French Wars of Religion) and a book analysing the Quietist scandal that rocked Louis XIV’s regime in the 1690s entitled Spiritual and Political Torrents: The Bossuet-Fénelon Battle & Crisis of Authority in Louis XIV’s France, 1687-99.

I am also continuing to research the development and empowerment of public opinion; the growing influence of the female voice in French society, culture and politics and within the wider, long-standing European ‘Querelle des Femmes’ [‘Women’s Quarrel’] that called for more independence and gender equality; mounting factional and critical opposition to Louis XIV, culminating in the constitutionally revolutionary Tables of Chaulnes of 1711; and the decline of Versailles.

Key Publications

Monograph:

• Queen of Versailles, Madame de Maintenon: First Lady of Louis XIV’s France (Montreal: McGill Queen’s University Press, 2020)

Monograph Reviews:

• “[A] monumental biography…. Queen of Versailles looks set to be the standard work on Maintenon for decades to come.” Sean Heath, Associate

Professor of History at Peking University & author of Sacral Kingship in Bourbon France: The Cult of Saint Louis 1589–1830 (2021)

• “This is first-rate research. Byrant is among the first people to bear insights drawn from modern gender history on Maintenon, who was one of the most powerful women in early modern Europe. Every scholar interested in the history of Louis XIV’s Europe will read this book, and it will be a vitally important addition to early modern women’s history.” James B. Collins, Emeritus Professor at Georgetown University and author of Empire of Fear: From Monarchical Commonwealth to French Royal State, 1561–1651 (2025)

Chapters and Articles

• “Vanity, or Insanity? Why did Louis XIV Revoke the Edict of Nantes in 1685?” – Forthcoming

• “Managing Mayhem at Court and in Combat: Madame de Maintenon’s Role in the Military Crisis of 1708”, in Ezequiel Borgognoni and Vincenzo Lagioia eds., ¿Marginalidad principesca?: Mujeres y espacios políticos en la Europa moderna [Marginalised Princesses? Women and Political Spaces in Early Modern Europe] (Madrid: Sílex Ediciones, 2026), pp. 201-19

• “«HACER LA VISTA GORDA» Madame de Maintenon y la relajación de la revocación del Edicto de Nantes (1697-1699)” [“‘Turn a Blind-Eye’: Madame de Maintenon and the Relaxation of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1697-99)”] in MUJERES EN LA ALTA POLÍTICA DE LA EUROPA MODERNA: Visibilidad, ocultación y memoria [Women in High Politics in Modern Europe: Visibility, concealment and memory] edited by Alicia Esteban Estríngana and José Antonio López Anguita (Madrid: Fundación Carlos de Amberes / Ediciones Doce Calles, 2024), pp. 83-110

Teaching

• The Renaissance & Reformation World, 1300-1650 (Level 4)

• Torture to Terror: Progress & Repression in the European World, 1492-1794 (Level 4)

• Witchcraft & Magic in Early Modern Europe, 1300-1800 (Level 4)

• Stuart England, 1603-88: Rebellion, Restoration, Revolution (Level 5)

• The Enlightenment World, 1688-1789 (Level 5)

• Louis XIV’s France, 1643-1715 (Level 6)

• The French Revolution, 1744-99: Origins & Outcomes (Level 6)

PhD Students

I have supervised several research students and welcome more working on almost any aspect of England or France in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

International Conferences Organized

• Co-organized with Hugo Frey the Society for the Study of French History annual conference held at the University of Chichester in June 2016 and delivered a paper: “The Quietist & Jansenist Crises in Louis XIV’s France, 1687-1715”

• Co-organized with Tim McHugh ‘The Dynamics of Power in Early Modern France: Collaboration, Coercion, Conflict’ in July 2009, sponsored by the ‘Society for the Study of French History’ and the Institute of Historical Research, London, where the colloquium was held, and delivered a paper: “The Personal Misrule of Louis XIV, 1691-1715?”

Select Conference Papers (2007-)

• “The State of the State in Early Modern France?” paper delivered in a session to honour Professor James B. Collins at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of French History in Paris in July 2025

• “Reflections on ‘Absolutism’ and Roger Mettam’s Contribution to the Study of Louis XIV’s France” paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of French History in Liverpool 29 June-1 July 2024

• “Managing Mayhem at Court and in Combat: Madame de Maintenon’s Role in the Military Crisis of 1708” paper delivered at the colloquium ‘Marginalised Princesses? Women and Political Spaces in Early Modern Europe’ held in Ravenna in April 2023