Towns and Communication, Volume 1: Communication in Towns

Veronika Nov

places of power: the spreading of official information and the social uses of space in fifteenth-century paris Veronika Novák Key words: official publication, social uses of space, fifteenth century, Paris. On 29 August 1412, the Parliament in Paris did not meet because its members, together with many other clerics and laymen of the city, took part in a thanksgiving procession, going from Notre Dame to the Sainte Geneviève Abbey (the site of today’s Panthéon), organised to celebrate the peace treaty concluded in Auxerre between the rival magnates of the kingdom. The procession and the ensuing sermon may have been an occasion for part of the town dwellers to learn about the happy event. However, it is possible that some had known about it in advance: the royal message had arrived at Parliament two days before, as we know from the diary of the scribe, Nicolas de Baye. On the same day, the Parliament contacted the cathedral chapter of Notre Dame and the Parisian bishop’s officials, who ordered that all the parish priests in the capital sing Te Deum in their respective churches. Although this may have gone unnoticed on the streets of the city, as the hymn was sung all the bells of the Paris churches were rung, ensuring that everybody heard it. The meaning of all of these ceremonies was then clarified at Mass the following day. Two weeks later, after the ratification of the treaty, it was finally proclaimed by the crier: accompanied by a trumpeter and some officials, he went through the city stopping time and again at customary corners and crossroads to read aloud a text containing a summary of the treaty.1 1 Alexandre Tuetey (ed.), Journal de Nicolas de Baye, greffier du Parlement de Paris 1400-1417, I-II, Paris, Renouard 1885-1888, tome II p. 83-87. ; L. Bellaguet (ed.), Chronique du Religieux de Saint-Denis, contenant le règne de Charles VI, de 1380 à 1422, I-VI, Paris 1839-1852, IV p. 723. 47 This succession of different events raises many questions about the speed of information dissemination, about strategies employed by the authorities choosing whether or not to proclaim, about the structure of ceremonies, about the reception and interpretation of news, and about the existence of some sort of late-medieval public opinion. In addition to these important questions, we can wonder at the suggestive spatiality of this succession of events: streets and halls, churches and towers, crossroads and corners, and how they provided a platform for staging solemn acts and dynamic movements. The transmission of information is profoundly anchored in the Parisian space, thus it is pertinent to study what signifies localisation, what meaning can be read in the spaces occupied and the itineraries covered. What is the grammar and the syntax of the squares and streets, tours and stops? Studies about the uses of urban space offer some models for interpretation: they can first focus on how usage makes tangible the hidden identity, the true face of the city; they can also show how it sanctifies, protects or simply makes important certain parts of the city; and finally they can demonstrate how use symbolises takeover, rivalry and conquest.2 As we are interested in the publication of information, we shall concentrate on some quite practical aspects of the use of space: how the spreading of news was spatially organised; the important places chosen by the authorities to become the stages of publication, and inversely, the city hot spots where Parisians went to collect news; and whether all of this attempted sanctification, takeover and identity-making process influenced the meaning of the message at its reception.3 To answer these questions, we shall use the very rich corpus of Parisian urban chronicles and diaries, other chronicles of the period and the preserved registers of royal publications. 2 Natalie Zemon Davis, “The sacred and the body social in sixteenth-century Lyon”, in: Past and Present 90 (1981), p. 40-70.; Elie Konigson, L’espace théâtral médiéval, Paris 1975, p. 90-95. ; Jacques Chiffoleau, “Les processions parisiennes de 1412. Analyse d’un rituel flamboyant”, in: Revue Historique, 284 (1990), p. 37-76. ; Barbara A. Hanawalt – Michal Kobialka (eds.), Medieval practices of space, Minneapolis – London, University of Minnesota Press 2000; Giovanni Ciappelli, “Carnavale e Quaresima: rituali e spazio urbano a Firenze (secc. XIII-XVI)”, in: Jacques Chiffoleau - Lauro Martines - Agostino Paravicini Baglioni (eds.), Riti e rituali nelle società medievali, Spoleto 1994, p. 159-174...