Society and Culture in Medieval Rouen, 911–1300 ed. by Leonie V. Hicks and Elma Brenner (review)

Rouen enjoyed an extended era of influence from the tenth to the early thirteenth centuries as the chief city of Normandy during its time as a rising duchy and, after 1066, its union with the English crown. After the conquest of Normandy by the French king Philip Augustus in 1204 the city continued to grow, but its central role in the political and economic life of the Anglo-Norman and Angevin realms was lost. Considering its importance throughout the period, it is somewhat surprising that more attention has not been paid to the city in recent historiography, at least among English-speaking scholars. This volume seeks to repair that oversight by presenting a series of articles on Rouen during and just after its time of prominence, building on developments in urban history and the methodologies of the ‘spatial turn’.

The collection opens with Bernard Gauthiez’s detailed study of the topography of the city and the changes it witnessed from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. In the twelfth century Rouen was ‘notably larger than Paris’ (p. 28), with perhaps 25,000 inhabitants. Detailed charts of the shifting layout of the city, based on the author’s own intense study of the subject over many years, provide an excellent basis on which to appreciate the subsequent discussions of related aspects of Rouen’s history. For example, Leonie Hicks considers movement through the city streets in episodes such as processions and riots. Hicks assesses chronicle descriptions of these events which, she argues, can illuminate social conditions and urban culture. This focus on urban space and its changing uses over time allows a number of the volume’s essays to speak to one another in enlightening ways. While disagreements are not absent (over issues such as the concept of a ‘capital city’ and whether Rouen can be described in this way) the overriding sense is of unity in diversity. A result such as this is not always the case in collected editions of essays, but here the contributions tend to complement one another even while approaching Rouen’s medieval past from a variety of perspectives.

Another of the volume’s key themes is the examination of social networks. Fanny Madeline and Paul Webster both assess Rouen’s importance to the Angevin monarchs, especially by studying royal itineraries and patronage. Similarly, Daniel Power argues for a strong relationship between the Anglo-Norman aristocracy and Rouen’s mercantile elite despite a rhetoric of disdain towards the latter by the former in contemporary texts. At the other end of the social spectrum, Elma Bremner and Leonie Hicks focus on Rouen’s outsiders: not only the poor and the sick, but also Rouen’s significant Jewish community which suffered notable violence in 1096 during the moment of religious fervour associated with the calling of the First Crusade. Essays by Richard Allen and Grégory Combalbert consider Rouen’s role as an archiepiscopal seat and the secular as well as spiritual networks that emerged as a result of its important ecclesiastical function.

The volume could usefully be consulted in conjunction with another recent Brepols collection, Normandy and its Neighbours 900–1250 (see my review in Parergon, 29.2). That edition covered a very similar time period but tended to look outwards, as its title suggests. Here the focus is inwards but together the two collections represent a significant advance in scholarship on Normandy during its medieval heyday. The metropolis at its political, social, and economic centre is only just beginning to reveal its secrets. Medieval Rouen was, as the volume’s editors conclude, ‘an important city, about which much still remains to be discovered’ (p. 10).