‘The Return of Martin Guerre’

A microhistorical tale of deceit, mystery, and so much more

Your partner returns home eight years after abandoning you and your child. However, they have seemingly traded a number of their physical characteristics for somebody else’s — what do you do? I am sure that this hypothetical conundrum had not yet been deconstructed in the mind of Bertrande de Rols before the very circumstance would confront her in 1556. Natalie Zemon Davis’s retelling of these events in her 1982 book The Return of Martin Guerre provides us with a classic microhistory. One that both entertains with its peculiarity and astonishes with its insight into wider themes in society as it tells a previously unknown story to the reader. 

As you might have guessed, the essence of microhistory is a reduction in scale. In doing so, the focus of this scholarship has revolved heavily around the lower strata of society, flooding the historical discourse with stories of forgotten people in circumstances previously deemed insignificant. Academically, this process has been praised for its ability to observe major themes within minor events. However, I believe that its true brilliance comes in its reflection of humanity. It allows for the freedom of the historian (and reader) to forget about the broader themes of history for a brief moment and instead engage with what is and has forever been within us all — emotion. 

So what exactly happened with Martin Guerre? At fourteen, he was wed to Bertrande de Rols as part of an alliance between their families in 1538. As with any typical medieval arranged marriage, neither bride nor groom had a choice in the matter, with compatibility not exactly at the forefront of either family’s concerns. Following the ceremony, the newly married couple were expected to cement their status and conceive a child, but this did not happen. Rather, they were subjected to eight years of humiliation and ridicule as a result of Martin’s supposed impotence. Bertrande later claimed in court that the couple had been cast under a spell by a jealous sorceress, and it was not until a mysterious woman appeared instructing them to eat “special cakes” that the curse was lifted and their first son, Sanxi, was born. 

Although his public humiliation had ended, Martin remained unsatisfied with life in the village of Artigat and, after stealing grain from his father (an unforgivable crime in medieval Basque culture), he disappeared from his wife and child. Eight years later, a man claiming to be the very same Martin Guerre returned to Artigat and, despite hesitations due to the differences in his physical appearance, he was soon accepted by Bertrande and the village community. Any immediate questions about his shorter, stockier stature were quelled by his air-tight knowledge of the interpersonal relations he was supposed to have had before he left. This man was in fact Arnaud du Tilh. After being mistaken for the disappeared villager from Artigat, he spent almost three years preparing to become Martin Guerre, revising the intricate details of the man’s former life to carry out a daring attempt at imposture. It is easy in hindsight to see the villager’s acceptance of the false Martin Guerre as naive. However, if we cast our minds back to a medieval landscape in which, by necessity, personal identity relied on far more than physical appearance, it makes sense. After all, why would Arnaud devote such time to this effort if he did not think that perceived identity stretched beyond aesthetic boundaries? This was a time in which the regular person did not have access to mirrors (and, of course, cameras) and so people’s perceptions of their appearance would have been limited to such instances as brief riverside glimpses of their reflection. The Guerres themselves also had no portraits in their house to compare this claimant to, as we would perhaps do now with photographs if presented with the same circumstances. 

And so it went that Arnaud became Martin. That was until he aggravated Martin’s uncle, Pierre, over a land dispute and began facing accusations of imposture out of retaliation. The initial suspicions flourished once more throughout the village, especially following the fleeting visit of a soldier to Artigat who claimed that the real Martin Guerre had lost a leg in battle during his mysterious time away. This culminated in a court case involving 150 witnesses who failed to provide a clear consensus on whether the man they had welcomed back was the same one they had grown up with. Where some saw an obvious imposter, others saw their neighbour, Martin Guerre. But then, like a bombshell entrance in the final minutes of a daytime television show’s season finale, the real Martin Guerre, wooden-legged and disappointed in his wife, hobbled into the courtroom. With his eyes fixed on Bertrande, he remarked, “And for the disaster which has befallen our house, no one is to blame but you.” These words are, I must say, quite unreasonable coming from a man who had abandoned his wife and child for almost a decade. 

That is a brief account of the dramatic story of Martin Guerre, Bertrande de Rols, and Arnaud du Tilh — a tale of abandonment, deceit, and mystery. However, in the hands of Natalie Zemon Davis, it becomes so much more than this. It is a lens into medieval emotion and agency. A medium to investigate the ways in which women like Bertrande may have navigated the suffocating circumstances they were subjected to. Rather than a passive and naive character, Zemon Davis’ Bertrande comes to life as someone taking back her right to  choose. Instead of assuming that the couple’s failure to conceive was due to a genuine belief in sorcery, some suspect Bertrande used this as a means of delaying her entry into motherhood until she was ready to do so. Zemon Davis also speculates that Bertrande successfully identified the returned Martin as an imposter but continued their marriage after a genuine connection had formed. 

Whether or not you believe Zemon Davis’s depiction of the story, we owe it to the memory of Bertrande to consider and speculate on what her thoughts and feelings might have been at the time. Microhistory allows us to engage with those who were once reduced to names, statistics, or footnotes. Without approaches like these, much of the genuine emotion of the past would be lost to the noisy events that, although critically important to understand, often drown out the humanity with which we can most resonate.

Illustration by Calum Mayor