Books by Kenneth Loiselle
Friendship, an acquired relationship primarily based on choice rather than birth, lay at the hear... more 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.
A renewal of the research into Freemasonry is well underway today and the structure of internatio... more A renewal of the research into Freemasonry is well underway today and the structure of international research is taking a clear shape. In light of this, this collective work marks the start of a series dedicated to the most promising avenues of research into Masonic studies.
Articles and Book Chapters by Kenneth Loiselle
La communication en Europe : De l'âge classique au siècle des Lumières, 2014
ISBN: 978-2-7011-8252-0
The Journal of Modern History, 2022
This article explores how Freemasonry served as an important institutional setting where the core... more This article explores how Freemasonry served as an important institutional setting where the core tenets of the Catholic Enlightenment shaped the social lives of ordinary people during the prerevolutionary and revolutionary eras (ca. 1775–1800). Through an examination of the books brethren owned, the rituals they performed, and the partnerships they forged with local priests in poor relief, it demonstrates that lodges promoted a form of Catholicism that was irenical, practical, simplified, and Christocentric. Archival material includes meeting registers, account books, correspondence between brethren, and ritual manuals housed either in underexploited provincial archives or in the Russian archives of the Grand Orient de France in Paris. This investigation demonstrates that the Catholic Enlightenment was not only a movement of ideas but also a sociocultural phenomenon and that Old Regime Freemasonry, unlike its modern iterations, was imbued with Christian ethics and embedded within a Christian symbolic order.
L’amitié dans les écrits du for privé du Moyen Age à 1914, 2014
La communication en Europe de l'âge classique au siècle des Lumières, 2014
Entrer en communication de l'âge classique aux Lumières, Jan 2013
Colloque Archive épistolaire et Histoire, 2007
Dix-huitième siècle, 2007
Book Reviews by Kenneth Loiselle
Conference Presentations by Kenneth Loiselle
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Books by Kenneth Loiselle
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.
Articles and Book Chapters by Kenneth Loiselle
Book Reviews by Kenneth Loiselle
Conference Presentations by Kenneth Loiselle
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.