Biography
Christophe is a Postdoctoral Research Assistant working on the project (ERC-Selected, UKRI Frontier Research Grant, 2024-2028).Ìý
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.Ìý
Before beginning his doctoral studies, he completed an MA thesis at the University of Auckland on violence and affection in seventeenth-century French memoirs.Ìý
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.Ìý
He has recently co-edited a of the journal Renaissance Studies onÌý'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 TransnationalÌýRebellion in Bourbon France: Exile, Mobility and the Making of the Absolutist State, 1630-1661.Ìý
Selected publications
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Gillain, C., 30 Sept 2025, In: Renaissance Quarterly. 78, 3, p. 921-923
Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review
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Open access
Nicholson, A. & Gillain, C., Feb 2025, In: Renaissance Studies. 39, 1, p. 8-25
Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review
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Gillain, C., 9 Jun 2025, (Accepted/In press) In: Eighteenth-Century Studies.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Open access
Gillain, C., 1 Aug 2023, In: H-France. 23, 142, p. 1-5
Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review
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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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Gillain, C., 1 Aug 2021, In: English Historical Review. 136, 581, p. 1075-1076
Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review
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