Parcours urbains – représentation de l’espace aux 13e–17e siècles a travers les « Rues de Paris »
Urban Journeys – Representation of Space during the 13–17th Centuries in the “Rues De Paris”

Summary/Abstract: The paper explores a particular genre, the lists of streets contained in the manuscript and printed guides of Paris from 1300 to the 17th century, and aims to show that the analysis of the form and the content of these lists can reveal several important aspects and transformations of the representation of space between the Middle Ages and the early modern era. The Parisian street lists of the period are structured in a topographical order: they create virtual itineraries covering the territory of the town. The formal characteristics of the street lists, the enumeration and the itinerary were important tools in the constitution of pilgrim guides, tax rolls etc.: these genres highlight the role of verbal mapping in the medieval representation of space. The reconstitution of the journeys formed by the succession of streets enables us to explore the role of the walls and of the official territorial units of the city (districts, parishes). In fact, these official limits do not play an important role, the itineraries only seem to obey to the ancient divisions of the city by the Seine river and to the persisting memory of the old walls. Finally, changes in the lists document important transformations: the growing role of graphic city maps, the domination of the alphabetical order, and the birth of the incontrollable metropolis.

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