Temps de travail et fêtes religieuses au xviiie siècle

Abstract

An impressive number of holydays was suppressed from mid-seventeenth through the end of Eighteenth-Century. An important consequence was the strong worktime increase. The aim of this article is to understand why. Was it a consequence of a popular growing desire for working more in order to consume more? Was this evolution of the religious calendar promoted by the enlightened elite inspired by the new utilitarian political economy? Or, on the contrary, could we interpret this impressive movement towards less holydays as a European religious phenomenon, led and directed by the church and the papacy?