The Use of Historical Evidence in Natalie Zemon Davis the Return of Martin Guerre Essay

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Natalie Zemon Davis' The Return of Martin Guerre chronicles a true story but Davis' historical work of nonfiction has the quality of a fairy tale because of its improbable character. The title character is a well-to-do French peasant that apparently disappeared, leaving his wife Bertrande de Rols in the status of legal limbo. In a world in which a woman's marital status was all-important, she was unable to divorce and unable to mourn a man she was uncertain was dead or alive. A man claiming to be Martin Guerre returned and was accepted by 'his' wife but was later revealed to be an imposter, despite being fully accepted by both Bertrande and the surrounding community. In her analysis of this story, Davis skillfully blends court testimony and speculation to flesh out this narrative. In doing so she makes a contribution to the way that historical analysis is usually performed. It is often challenging to 'do' history, a method of study which focuses on verbal analysis, when the historical players are not literate. Davis attempts to make a claim that the stories of people such as Bertrande are equally important as those of the aristocracy.

Davis' work is so unique because she makes an important claim that the lives of peasants and women of 16th century France are far more complex and empowered than previous accounts might suggest. She believes that a failure to understand Bertrande's motivation has its origin in the emphasis on using supposedly objective, written accounts of previous historians. Of course, merely because something is written in the past does not necessarily mean it is accurate and factual. "Historians have been learning more and more about rural families from marriage contracts and testaments, from parish records of births and deaths, and from accounts of courtship ... But we still know little about the peasants' hopes and feelings."[footnoteRef:1] In a case such as that of Martin Guerre's, understanding feelings and motivations are critical. Peasants often are the subjects of comedies yet the types of actual court transcripts used in Davis' work suggest a different story.

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There are portrayals of bad marriages, contracts violated, and other common sources of strife, just as with higher-born individuals. The central question with which Davis grapples in her work is how to make peasants' lives come to life with dignity. [1: Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), p.3]

An example of Davis' methodology as a historian can be seen in the manner in which she deals with the original Martin Guerre's failure to produce a child for eight years. This may have been due to apparent impotency. Guerre married into Bertrande's wealthier family when he was young (fourteen years old) even by the standards of the 16th century French peasantry. Even after the couple failed to produce children, however, Bertrande continued to remain with him although legally she was not under any obligation to do so and apparently was subject to familial pressure to leave. "Since the marriage was unconsummated," due to the young Martin's impotence, "it could be dissolved after three years and she would be free by cannon law to marry again."[footnoteRef:2] Ironically, by consummating the marriage she unintentionally bound herself to a man who was destined to leave her for years. [2: Davis, p.20]

Bertrande's willingness to acquiesce to the imposter's presence is viewed by Davis as a shrewd, calculated decision. First of all, Davis attempts to establish that there is very little evidence that Bertrande could truly have believed that the imposter Arnaud du Tilh was, in fact, her lost husband Martin. Arnaud is described as physically the opposite of Guerre -- short and stocky with a very different temperament. He was known as a "man with big appetites."[footnoteRef:3] The one thing the two men had in common was that they were both fugitives. Guerre left his hometown after being accused of stealing grain from his father-in-law. "As a thought experiment," writes Davis, "let us imagine what might have taken place if the heir from Artigat became friends with the golden-tongued peasant from Sajas."[footnoteRef:4] Davis' thought experiment is….....

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