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Home , Bourgeois of Paris, History of Paris, Paris, Paris in the Middle Ages, University of Paris

Simone Roux. in the . Translated by Jo Ann McNamara. Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Map, table. xvi + 249 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8122-4159-4.

Reviewed by David Spear

Published on H-Urban (October, 2009)

Commissioned by Alexander Vari (Marywood University)

It is hard to imagine a that has exerted a this English version sums her observations more constant infuence on Western history than both for scholars and for the educated public. The Paris. , perhaps--but Rome's ancient legacy translator, Jo Ann McNamara was professor of and clerical culture made it difcult, if not impos‐ history emerita at Hunter , City University sible, to emulate. Paris--the medieval reinvention of New York, until her recent death (on May 20, of the Roman city of --was an urban suc‐ 2009, according to the Historical Review cess and served as a for others. Paris, un‐ 95 [2009], p. 656), and a well-known medieval his‐ like and many other medieval , nev‐ torian in her own right. She had previously trans‐ er had a of Liberties. But the intersection lated Pierre Riché's Daily Life in the World of of the French monarchy, the frst university, an (1978) for the same series in which elite , artisans, day laborers, and even the under review here appeared. marginalized segments of the coa‐ Countless have been written about lesced to give Paris a unique identity, admired by Paris, but there are few in English about the histo‐ many, and certainly worth study for those who ry of medieval Paris. There are, of course, numer‐ want to know how this urban phenomenon came ous works that detail aspects of the medieval city, to be. such as the rise of its university, or surviving its Simone Roux, professor of history emerita at poverty, or daily life on its famous bridges;[1] the -X, , is the author while, from another angle, myriad books cover of . Among her many pub‐ the rise of the monarchy, which, of course, over‐ lications, Roux has written one book, La rive laps considerably with the growth and develop‐ gauche des escholiers, (XV siècle) (1992), and sev‐ ment of Paris.[2] Yet other studies trace the rise of eral articles, specifcally on medieval Paris. Origi‐ Paris as a microcosm of medieval civilization,[3] nally published in 2003 as Paris au Moyen Age, H-Net Reviews but few books are straightforward histories of the make way for houses, reminders of which are still city itself, written by qualifed historians. found in modern toponyms, such as Clos Bruneau, Roux covers the period from c.1200 to c.1500, Clos de Laas, and Clos Mauvoisin. Roux describes beginning with the walling of the city by King the king and seigneurial lords dividing and subdi‐ Philip (reigned 1180-1223), and seeing viding their properties into housing units, ever Paris through to a period of consolidation after vigilant to maintain control over their real estate. the ravages of the Black Death and the Hundred In a similar , Philip Augustus recognized Years War. The walled city of medieval Paris the importance of clean streets, and so ordered seems quite small today, completely swallowed up residents to pave them. Not all landowners were by the modern megalopolis. The thirteenth-centu‐ willing to bend to the royal command, but the ry city's circumference was approximately a cir‐ king's voyers (supervisors) were placed in charge cle with the midpoint near today's station of enforcing street surfacing. Just as turning felds "Cité." The circle's radius was only about one-half into houses took decades, so did street paving. mile (eight hundred meters) and would include Roux's study of the process of urbanization ‐ the Pantheon at the outer limit of the Left Bank gests that newer houses were cheaper than older and the Church of St.-Eustache at the outer limit ones, with the result that streets and neighbor‐ of the Right Bank. The , the , the hoods became socially mixed. This conclusion Place des , St.-Germain-des-Prés, and the modifes the prevailing belief that and oc‐ Gardens would all have been out‐ cupations more than anything else dictated living side the medieval walls. By 1500, though, the patterns. Right Bank's ramparts had been extended by an‐ As for Parisians themselves, they seem to other half mile, running along a circumference have emigrated primarily from northern , touching today's to the Place the Low Countries, England, and . Be‐ de la République to the Place de la . cause so few residents arrived from Mediter‐ Roux's approach is to focus on Paris strictly as ranean , "Paris remained a northern city" an urban entity. The book is organized in a clear (p. 47). Roux subscribes to the viewpoint that the and easy-to-follow fashion. Part 1, in the words of population of Paris in c.1325 was more than two the author, "examines the overall Parisian space, hundred thousand. And as this seething mixture encircled by the walls of the enceinte and orga‐ of coalesced, Paris took on in nized by the diverse authorities who governed it. some ways a very modern identity--not yet per‐ We trace its more detailed aspects in the city haps the City of Light--of emancipation (" air streets, and seek to understand how this space makes "); of a constant stream of outsiders was peopled, whence Parisians came, and how who eventually adopted the identity of Parisians; they were transformed into city dwellers who and of a mixing of bureaucrats, shopkeepers, and sometimes thought of themselves as a people su‐ students. (Were there also tourists? If so, Roux is perior to all others" (pp. 2-3). mum about them.) It is not generally appreciated that Paris was In part 2, Roux "looks at the ruling elements almost willed into existence by Philip Augustus. of medieval society in three hierarchies that He took a second-rank town and elevated it. The checked, complemented, and sometimes over‐ royal was already located there, but by ex‐ lapped one another" (p. 3). These were hierarchies tending the walls in a planned fashion, large pas‐ of wealth, political power, and the Church. In the‐ toral and agricultural areas were urbanized. Roux ory, these categories were strictly delineated, but calls attention to vineyards that were uprooted to in Paris a fair bit of intermingling took place. For

2 H-Net Reviews example, the great bourgeoisie imitated and in‐ that wound their way through the deed often married into the landed . One streets on festival days. example cited by Roux is the des Essarts family, Part 3 investigates daily life. In Paris, as in which originally came from the bourgeoisie of most medieval , houses were not just lodg‐ , but further prospered in Paris. Pierre des ing but often included workshops, storage, and Essarts served as fnance minister in the king's even retail space. Over a hundred diferent crafts household and shortly thereafter found himself fourished in medieval Paris, most ordered into raised up to the nobility. "Like many other great the hierarchy of masters, apprentices, journey‐ personages ... (Pierre) amassed honors and privi‐ men, and valets. Sometimes these arrange‐ leges in two classes: and enno‐ ments made for surrogate families, and this might bled" (p. 69). Other French cities had rich bour‐ partly explain Roux's observation that "the family geoisie, but only in Paris were they so near to the had largely shed its extensions and come to be de‐ king, unquestionably the of political pow‐ fned as a couple and their children" (p. 144). In er. addition to the artisans, records show a large ar‐ For their part, nobles of the sword played vir‐ ray of jobs for domestics and unskilled laborers. tually no role in the power structure of Paris, but One document from 1297 suggests that the most could hardly aford to absent themselves from common occupations for taxpaying women were proximity to the king, who now resided perma‐ grocers, chambermaids, headdress makers, dress‐ nently in Paris. One solution was to build a vast makers, and washerwomen. , too, second home right in Paris, as did the dukes of could act as extended family. It would be surpris‐ in their de Bourbon adjacent to ing if a French author who covered daily life did the Louvre. As regards the Church, doubtless the not include a discussion of food, and Roux does most powerful presences in Paris were the vener‐ not disappoint. Relying heavily on the Mesnagier able of St.-Germain-des-Prés and Ste.- de Paris, a well-known late fourteenth-century Geneviève, which had impressive seigneuries text, Roux notes that, like today, "The Parisian both inside and outside the walls of the city. In ad‐ market ofered all sorts of commodities in abun‐ dition, the bishop of Paris surrounded by his " (p. 177). Clothing could also be found in cathedral clergy, the monasteries and their nu‐ many styles, depending on one's social status. merous monks, the mendicant houses and their Roux observes that contrary to clichés about the friars, and the university with its thousands of Middle Ages, people took baths in tubs in their scholars all contributed a strong clerical favor to houses, and that "all things considered, bodily hy‐ the city. Yet the masters of the university "hardly giene was better in the medieval period than in enjoyed more than symbolic political power and early modern times" (p. 186). played no great role in the government of the Aside from its general lucidity, the most im‐ realm" (p. 89). In a tradition parallel to that of the pressive feature of the book is the author's strict great secular lords, the clerical grandees, such as reliance on evidence from and about Paris itself. the abbot of Cluny and the archbishop of , ob‐ Roux does not fll in aspects of daily life, for exam‐ tained large houses to be used during their so‐ ple, by borrowing from what is known about journs to Paris. Both structures still stand: the res‐ housewives in or processions in Rome or idence of the former is today the Musée de Cluny, even merchants in London. This might seem while that of the latter is the Hotel de Sens. Anoth‐ counterintuitive, but Roux eschews overgeneral‐ er manifestation of Ecclesia, aside from the nu‐ ization. Her account is rock solid for what we merous churches themselves, were the colorful know about Paris alone. It is clear, too, that Roux

3 H-Net Reviews has mastered certain texts and extracted valuable conclusions. Sharon Farmer and William Courte‐ information about medieval Paris, as for example nay, for example, using diferent sources from the Mesnagier de Paris, the censier of 1297, and Roux, both buttress her observation that Paris Etienne Boileau's Le Livre des Metiers. was primarily a northern city.[7] I have four criticisms of the book, listed here One must complain, too, that a one-page in‐ from least to most signifcant. First, Roux certain‐ dex is simply insufcient. True, the French edition ly seems more comfortable with written texts had no index at all. But if one ever wanted to relo‐ than with artistic evidence. The Limbourg Broth‐ cate the interesting discussion of, say, the ers' Très Riches Heures has several miniatures "Parisian accent," where we fnd that Parisians showing Paris at the end of the fourteenth centu‐ pronounced Epiphany as Tiphaine or Saint Mark ry.[4] Roux knows of them, but dispatches this as Saint Maar, it would be difcult. (It is on page source with the comment: "the rampart defned 59.) the city, totally summing it up" (p. 30). But one The lack of a useful map is really a problem. wonders why the relevant miniatures, for the It is easy to imagine how this oversight came to months of June and October, draw such a strong be. The French version doubtless needed no map contrast between life and nature outside the city on the grounds that most readers would have and a cold, stone skyline of royal fortresses with‐ been familiar with the streets and sites of me‐ in. Virginia Wylie Egbert's On the Bridges of Medi‐ dieval Paris. Even so, a small detail was repro‐ aeval Paris is likewise not subjected to the same duced from the Truscher and Hoyau c.1551 "bird's sort of rigorous, systematic analysis that Roux be‐ eye view" map of the whole city, more for efect stows on judicial and administrative records.[5] than for pedagogy. publisher decid‐ This medieval manuscript illustrates scenes from ed to reproduce the whole map as a frontispiece-- the Life of Saint Denis that reveal a multitude of a great idea, but fawed in execution: the map is details of daily life on the Grand Pont and the Pe‐ far too blurry to be deciphered, even with a good tit Pont, then the only two Parisian bridges across magnifying lens. It occasionally works if you al‐ the . Roux does call attention to the various ready know where to hunt. Notre-Dame Cathedral forms of transportation that before our is easy to fnd. But how large is the Châtelet, the eyes here-- trafc, pack animals, and boats. headquarters of royal justice and administration? But one could go further. For example, Roux men‐ It is hard to tell because it is hidden by the fold. tions various religious processions that wound Where is the Place de Grève where workers con‐ their way through the city, including one in which gregated to hire themselves out for day labor? You the clergy of Notre Dame "traveled from the can fnd it if you already know that it borders the Cathedral to the church of Saint-Gervais by boat" Seine on the Right Bank, due north of Notre (p. 42). Perhaps this is exactly what the viewer Dame. Where is the Bièvre River which fows sees on folio 99r, as a group of clergy chant from a from the Left Bank into the Seine? It seems to be musical text while in a boat foating beneath the coursing through the of St. Victor, just Grand Pont.[6] east of the city wall on the Left Bank, but is unla‐ My second criticism is that the book rests ex‐ beled. What was needed was a modern map clusively on a French-language bibliography. This showing these and other major sites discussed in certainly has the advantage of acquainting for‐ the book. One can fnd such maps, though obvi‐ eigners with the best and most recent of French ously these will not depict all the sites mentioned scholarship, but it omits several fne English-lan‐ in Roux's book.[8] guage studies that could have added to the book's

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Against these criticisms, it is important to Berry, introduction by Jean Longnon and Ray‐ note that the English edition has a useful chrono‐ mond Cazelles (New York: George Braziller, 1989). logical table as well as a glossary. Moreover, the [5]. Egbert, On the Bridges of Mediaeval Paris. translation itself seems to be extremely faithful to [6]. Ibid., 29. the original, and thus both French and English versions are models of clarity and brevity. The [7]. Farmer, Surviving Poverty in Medieval book has only two hundred pages of text, plus Paris, 22; and Courtenay, Parisian Scholars in the ffty pages of notes and bibliography. I found very Early Fourteenth Century, 121. few typographical errors, the most notable being [8]. See Courtenay, Parisian Scholars in the on page 188 where the phrase "but probably more Early Fourteenth Century, 60-61; Farmer, Surviv‐ attractive distraction but probably more attrac‐ ing Poverty in Medieval Paris, 14-15; and F. Roy tive" obviously needed one more round of editing. Willis, Western Civilization: An Urban Perspec‐ Paris in the Middle Ages is a wonderful and tive, vol. 1, 2d. ed. (Lexington: D. C. Heath, 1977), useful book for anyone who wants to know the 387. See also Egbert, On the Bridges of Mediaeval from the inside. And it is an im‐ Paris, 20, which draws from A. Lenoir's map in P. portant book inasmuch as the medieval period Géraud, Paris sous Philippe-le-Bel (Paris, 1837). was so crucial in the formation of a city that be‐ One wonders why the Lenoir map could not have came a beacon for so many cities in the West. been reproduced or adapted for Paris in the Mid‐ dle Ages. Notes

[1]. William J. Courtenay, Parisian Scholars in the Early Fourteenth Century: A Social Portrait (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Virginia Wylie Egbert, On the Bridges of Mediae‐ val Paris: A Record of Early Fourteenth-Century Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974); Sharon Farmer, Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris: Gender, Ideology, and the Daily Lives of the Poor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005); and Bronislaw Geremek, The Margins of Society in Late Medieval Paris (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni‐ versity Press, 1987). [2]. See, for example, Elizabeth M. Hallam, Capetian France, 987-1328 (London: Longman, 1983). [3]. David C. Douglas, "Medieval Paris," Time and the Hour: Some Collected Papers of David C. Douglas (London: Eyre Methuen, 1977), 77-93, originally published in The Golden Age of the Great Cities (Thames and Hudson, 1952). [4]. A convenient printed version of ‐ uscript is The Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duke of

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Citation: David Spear. Review of Roux, Simone. Paris in the Middle Ages. H-Urban, H-Net Reviews. October, 2009.

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