Paris in the Middle Ages (The Middle Ages Series) [Hardcover]

Simone Roux (Author), Jo Ann McNamara (Translator)

Book Description

Series: The Middle Ages Series | Publication Date: March 31, 2009

Paris in the Middle Ages was home to royalty, mountebanks, Knights Templar, merchants, prostitutes, and canons. Bursting outward from the encompassing wall, it was Europe's largest, most cosmopolitan city. Simone Roux chronicles the lives of Parisians over the course of a dozen generations as Paris grew from a military stronghold after the Battle of Bouvines in 1214 to a city recovering from the Black Death of the 1390s.

Roux peers into the private lives of people within their homes and chronicles the public world of affairs and entertainments, filling the pages of her book with laborers, shopkeepers, magistrates, thieves, and prelates. She examines the varied populations living within their own realms but sharing the streets of the metropolis, in the Latin Quarter, where the university dominated; in the precincts of Notre Dame, with its large number of clerical inhabitants; the mercantile Right Bank; and in the area surrounding the royal palace of the Louvre, with its attendant palaces for the king's satellites. She breathes life into dusty documents by explicating the lingo of street insults, making sense of the cults of saints—Sebastian, who was riddled with arrows, became the patron saint of tapestry workers—and entering the courtrooms and confessionals to tell how people actually ate, slept, dressed, fought, worked, and worshipped in the later Middle Ages.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Simone Roux's new history of medieval Paris, beautifully translated by Jo Ann McNamara . . . goes far beyond cold administrative mechanics or economics, and digs down into the attitudes of workaday life. It is this anecdotal material that gives the book its human edge—too often absent from a period lacking in diaries and private letters."—TLS

"One feels the city in constant motion, going from funeral to carnival, wading along streets drenched with the blood of animals flayed by butchers, applauding jongleurs and their monkeys, even watching the legal trials of beasts condemned to death."—Le Nouvel Observateur, in a review of the French edition

"A wonderful and useful book for anyone who wants to know the history of the city from the inside."—H-Net

About the Author

Simone Roux is Professor of History Emerita at University of Paris-X, Nantes. Jo Ann McNamara was Professor of History at Hunter College, City University of New York. She was the author of Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns Through Two Millennia.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press (March 31, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812241592
• ISBN-13: 978-0812241594
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,297,760 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Glimpse at Life in Late Medieval Paris, June 18, 2011

By 

Trent P. McDonald - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Paris in the Middle Ages (The Middle Ages Series) (Paperback)

This is an excellent book about life in Paris in the late Middle Ages giving a good view of how people lived during the time covered, which is roughly from the early 13th century to the end of the 15th. This isn't a narrative - it doesn't tell the history of the city in chronological order. It is more about how the people lived and how that changed through this time period. It's about the kaleidescope of life in a major (the major?) medieval city.

The book begins with an overview of Paris and how the streets and neighborhoods developed in the newly walled city. From there it went into various aspects of the lives of the people. There was a chapter for each of the 3 major power structures/hierarchies - based on money, religion and political power. It ended with a section on the nitty-gritty of daily life.

This book tried to talk about common people as much as possible. Unfortunately there are few sources so the various scraps of information we do know had to be compared with what we know about the rich and politically powerful, which really isn't very much either. Various records are cited and stories related to help us gain a better understanding.

I really enjoyed this book and got a lot out of it. One word of warning, though - you should have some background knowledge of the history of Paris, or at least France, during this period. This book assumes you already know the context, the broader story, the big canvas upon which these lives are painted. Events are often mentioned but only to give those with knowledge about them some context for what is being said.

If you are interested in how people really lived in Paris in the late Middle ages there is no better place to start than this book.