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Bourges à la fin du moyen âge. Une enquête d'histoire urbaine est-elle possible ?

Christine Felicelli

Abstracts

Is it possible to do a survey of urban history for the town of Bourges at the end of the Middle Ages ? It is worthwhile asking the question since there have not been many studies made concerning that particular area. Why has been the case ? No doubt because the local archives were destroyed by a series of fires until late into the 15th century. There are bibliographical elements to be found as the local history relating to medieval times is plentiful and as the material history of the town has recently been abundantly studied. It would, however, be of utmost interest to go beyond this monographic listing by themes so as to have a global overview of the town. That kind of survey brings into consideration the problem of substitution sources. The ones used are mainly tax registers of ecclesiastical institutions which did not get burnt and which are kept in regional archives. These registers, which have been indexed since the 14th century, are a mine of information which has hardly been tapped. Using ecclesiastical landed property as a starting point, those same registers allow one to carry out a study of the taxable area in towns and from there to extend the study to parishes, to communities of mendicants friars, to secular estates, to the "urbitexture" and to the whole of society. One ought to exercise the customary circumspection where the use of virtually a single source prevails. Nevertheless this research throws some light onto the fortunes of the town between the years 1350 and 1550.

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Index terms

Mots-clés :

Histoire urbaine

Chronologique:

Moyen Age
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References

Electronic reference

Christine Felicelli, “Bourges à la fin du moyen âge. Une enquête d'histoire urbaine est-elle possible ?”Cahiers d'histoire [Online], 45-3 | 2000, Online since , connection on 28 March 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ch/286; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/ch.286

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Copyright

The text and other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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