I need help regarding history of medieval Paris

by TheMadTargaryen

I am writing a work about Paris during the reign of king Louis IX. I wonder is there a way i can find out names of actual commoners like bakers, artisans and tavern owners who lived in Paris from roughly 1240 to 1270 ?

WelfOnTheShelf

Yes, if a slightly later period is acceptable! We know the names of thousands of people who lived in Paris in 1292, when a census was taken. It was edited and published as "Le Livre de la taille de Paris” in Paris sous Philippe-le-Bel, ed. Hercule Géraud (Paris, 1837), pg. 1-179. There is a list of names, where they’re from (if not France), where they live in Paris, what they do, and how much they owe in tax.

It’s not a census of the entire city and it doesn't list every single person who lived there, just the ones who paid taxes in the more commercial areas of the city. But it’s still incredibly interesting.

The published version by Géraud is a huge amount of info to take in, and it’s all in French, but there are a couple of websites that have done most of the hard work of compiling all the names and professions:

Names in the 1292 census of Paris

An Index to the Given Names in the 1292 Census of Paris

(Personally my favorite person in the census is Tiffany, the floral hairdresser.)

I would also recommend Paris, 1200 by John W. Baldwin (Stanford University Press, 2010). That's slightly earlier than you would like but it would still be very informative.

There are lots of books about Louis; actually I'm not even sure where to start with recommendations for biographies of Louis, there are so many, but Saint Louis by Jacques Le Goff (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009) would be a good one. And of course, the best eyewitness to Louis' reign and events in 13th-century Paris and elsewhere, the chronicle of Jean of Joinville, in Joinville and Villehardouin, Chronicles of the Crusades, trans. Caroline Smith (Penguin, 2009).

AncientHistory

Hi there - we're happy to approve your question related to your work, and we are happy for people to answer. However, we should warn you that many flairs have become reluctant to answer questions for aspiring novelists, based on past experience: some aspiring novelists have a tendency to try to pump historians for trivia while ignoring the bigger points they were making, while others have a tendency to argue with historians when the historical reality does not line up with what's needed for a particular scene or characterization. Please respect the answers of people who have generously given you their time, even if it's not always what you want to hear.

Additionally, as amazing as our flair panel is, we should also point out that /r/AskHistorians is not a professional historical consultation service. If you're asking a question here because you need vital research for a future commercial product such as a historical novel, you may be better off engaging a historical consultant at a fair hourly rate to answer these questions for you. We don't know what the going rate for consultancy work would be in your locality, but it may be worth looking into that if you have in-depth or highly plot-reliant questions for this project. Some /r/AskHistorians flairs could be receptive to working as a consultant in this way. However, if you wish for a flair here to do this work for you, you will need to organize this with them yourselves.