Craft Workshops in the Space of a Medieval City (According to the Livre des Métiers of Paris)

Abstract

This study is devoted to the place of a medieval craftsman’s workshop in the space of a medieval city, i.e. the correlation between the space of a workshop and space outside it in terms of their professional functionality. The research is based on the Parisian craft regulations of the thirteenth century, the Livre des Métiers of Paris. The author employs terminological analysis and investigates individual situations as they are presented or explained in the sources. The author examines the rules that determined the position of the buyer near the shop window that served as a counter and explains these rules as an expansion of the sales market in the medieval city, the possibility of working not for an order, but for a spontaneous buyer. The author does not refer to such special trading spaces as markets and fairs but reveals spaces that were equivalent to workshops, where the work of a craftsman was possible and was perceived as a norm. It was a citizen’s house, which, under certain conditions, could become a temporary place of work for a craftsman; the limitation of the duration and volume of such work was set by the status of the house owner (citizen, petty trader, merchant). It was the street that acted as a workspace only for masters of certain crafts. For others, the street could become a place of retail trade carried out by peddlers who were not professional traders: it mostly concerns craftsmen who did not have workshops or counters and became peddlers, but also other artisans. The author notes the shortcomings of peddler’s trade (impediment for other craftsmen, low quality products, etc.), the evidence of interest in it, and analyses the features of peddler’s trade in Paris in the thirteenth century.

Keywords

• «книга ремесел» парижа
• средневековый город
• мастерская
• прилавок
• разносчики
• рынок сбыта.