Martin Guerre

The story of Martin Guerre is the story of the original identity theft. This story is altogether the more amazing because of the fact that it is (at least in part) true.  This story revolves around a peasant family in 16^th Century France. This story is (for lack of a better word) outrageous, and hard to take seriously from any sort of analytical standpoint. It involves a man leaving, and another man taking his place (in every single way). This story almost seems as though it could be entirely fictional, and that was the way the way that Natalie Zemon Davis portrayed the return of Martin Guerre. She takes the point of view that Bertrande (Martin Guerre’s wife) was a willing accomplice in the fraud to replace him. If one thinks about it from a logical standpoint, given the period in history, this makes sense. Women at the time had essentially no status in society without their husband. With her husband leaving, she would have essentially lost much of the means to provide for her family. Because of these facts, it would have made sense for her to take up with a man claiming to be Martin (since she couldn’t legally divorce him). Zemon Davis portrayed this story as a fiction, but with real historical elements to back it up. It makes sense in some aspects that this story would have to be at least partially fictional. Searching for primary sources from this time period would be a difficult thing to do, let alone primary sources that corroborate every detail of the story. The Finlay review is essentially a critique on the use of sources to back up the arguments Davis made. Finlay points out that there were real records of the trial, and that these records did not line up with the story that Davis presented. This is a valid criticism. However, it should be noted that accounts of events do not always line up with regard to historical accuracy. Because of this fact, even though Finlay was right to criticize her lack of primary sources, Davis was not wrong in taking license with some of the events in the story.