Late Medieval Studies Citizen Living In Paris

Paris was the largest city on the European continent during the thirteenth and fifteenth century. And by the end of the fifteenth-century, Paris had possessed a population of200,000. Paris began to take shape and developed fast since Phillip August made a statute which ordered to construct the Parisian enceinte. Paris grew quickly during the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth-century, and was completely urbanized then. With the Black Death as its division, Paris regained development because of its recovered steady politics and the adjustment function of itself after the ordeal of the Hundred Years’War and the epidemics. This dissertation takes Parisian’s life of people from different strata in late medieval ages, namely, during the thirteenth and the fifteenth-century as its researching object. And it attempts to analyze the different living conditions of the upper burgher class, the common burgher class and the marginal class, and then tries to reveal the problems and social contradictions which appeared during the urbanization procedure of Paris and the panorama of Paris society, and furthermore, to make a thorough understanding to the social and economic development of Paris and even France.Apart from the introduction and the epilogue, this dissertation is divided into three chapters.The first chapter, The Concise Introduction of Late Medieval Paris, introduces the history of Paris from the inhabitants emerging to the late fifteenth-century briefly, and highlights the origin and the social-economic situations of Paris during the thirteenth and fifteenth-century which based the living background of Parisians from all strata. Paris was a consuming city at that time, and its industrial products were mostly consumed by the people living here. After complete urbanization, Paris continued to grow steadily.The second chapter, The Living Conditions of the Upper Parisian Burghers Class in the Late Medieval Ages, describes the living conditions of the upper Parisian burghers in four aspects that include politics life, economic life, family life and the religion life. Family life is emphasized in this chapter, in which the clothes, living, food and entertainment of upper burghers is elaborated, as well as their charity activities out of regional belief. Though they enjoyed great achievements on economic activities, they still had no stable politic rights and lived in shadow and danger all the time.The third chapter, The Living Conditions of the Middle Burgher Class and Marginal Class in the Late Medieval Ages, concentrates on the economic lives of the common burghers and the different marginal people’s lives like thieves, beggars, prostitutes and the vagabonds, etc. The common burghers and the marginal people had no voices on politics, and their economic status was austere. These people, especially the marginal ones were full of hatred and hostility to the upper people. The upper burghers, vice versa, had deep hatred to the poor and the marginal people. The common burghers ware vulnerable to accidents and easily reduced to marginal ones, whereas, the possibility for them to run up to higher levels was rare which made them also unsatisfied and feared of the whenever coming misfortunes.