Biography
Christophe is a Postdoctoral Research Assistant working on the project Communicating the Law in Europe, 1500-1750 (ERC-Selected, UKRI Frontier Research Grant, 2024-2028).
He was awarded his PhD in 2023 from the University of Cambridge for a thesis entitled 'Cardinal de Retz, French Noble Exile, and Political Mobility in Seventeenth-Century Europe’. His research examined how rebellious elites organised transnational networks of resistance to the French crown and its ministers, playing a central role in shaping the absolutist state.
Before beginning his doctoral studies, he completed an MA thesis at the University of Auckland on violence and affection in seventeenth-century French memoirs.
Research areas
Christophe's research focuses on the political culture of early modern France and Europe more broadly. He is particularly interested in forms of communication and mobility, and what they can tell us about how political authority and state power developed in this period.
He has recently co-edited a Special Issue of the journal Renaissance Studies, 'Innovation and Exile in the Early Modern World', with Dr Annalisa Nicholson at King's College London. He is currently working on his first monograph, tentatively entitled Transnational Rebellion in Bourbon France: Exile, Mobility, and the Making of the Absolutist State, 1630-1661.
Selected publications
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Open access
Introduction: Innovation and exile
Nicholson, A. & Gillain, C., 1 Oct 2024, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Renaissance Studies. Early View, 19 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review
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Jonathan Spangler, Monsieur: Second Sons in the Monarchy of France, 1550-1800. Abingdon: Routledge, 2022. 354 pp. 14 B/W illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. $48.95 U.S. (pb); ISBN 9780367761943; $34.26 U.S. (eb). ISBN 9781003165897; $170.00 U.S. (hb). ISBN 9780367761936.
Gillain, C., Aug 2023, In: H-France. 23, 142, p. 1-5Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review
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L’affection violente: écrire le moi dans les mémoires du Sieur de Pontis et de Henri de Campion
Gillain, C., 26 Oct 2022, L’amour et l’amitié au Grand Siècle. Calle, D. & Van Assche, A. (eds.). Paris: Classiques Garnier, p. 27-39 (Recontres (Éditions Classiques Garnier); vol. 550).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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Europe and the British Geographical Imagination, 1760–1830, by Paul Stock
Gillain, C., 23 Jun 2021, In: English Historical Review. 136, 581, p. 1075-1076Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review