Stanislas Zagun

I began my PhD in September 2024 under the supervision of Professor Guy Rowlands and Dr Arthur der Weduwen.

My research examines the place of French provincial governors during Louis XIV’s ‘Third Reign’ (ca.1683-1715) and aims to challenge the traditional view of them as figures of diminishing relevance to centre-periphery relations in the age of royal ‘absolutism’. My work focuses on three governors whose provinces – Flanders, Béarn and Basse Navarre, and Roussillon – were adjacent to Spanish lands, and analyses their impact on local administration and governmental conduct, through eras of war and peace. In addition, it emphasises their relationships with the king, the court, the intendants, and the localities to serve personal and provincial interests. Ultimately, I seek to uncover the provincial governors’ share in the stabilisation of the kingdom, in the penetration of royal authority in frontier and peripheral provinces, and in their subsequent integration while emphasizing similarities and specificities between provincial governments.

My research is generously funded by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities.

More broadly, I am interested in political and administrative history, court studies and centre-periphery relationships in a wider European context during the early modern period.

Educated in Paris (Première supérieure), I then completed a Master of Arts (Hons) in Geography and Modern History at the University of St Andrews, before pursuing a Master of Studies in Early Modern History at the University of Oxford (Pembroke College).