Centering on the streets of this metropolis, Simone Roux peers into the secret lives of people within their homes and the public world of affairs and entertainments, populating the book with laborers, shop keepers, magistrates, thieves, and strollers.

This book discusses the 'marginal' people of late medieval Paris, the large and shifting group of men and women who existed on the margins of conventional organized society. Professor Geremek examines the various groups which made up the marginal world - beggars, prostitutes, procuresses and pimps, petty criminals, casual workers and the unemployed - their haunts in and around Paris, their way of life, and their relation to 'normal' society. Professor Geremek has made with this book a major contribution to the study of late medieval society which illuminates the little-known area of the medieval underworld in a fascinating and very accessible manner. Translated by Jean Birrell from the French edition of 1976, this edition includes a new introduction by Jean-Claude Schmitt, which offers a frank appraisal of the author's life and career to date.

Farmer extends and deepens the understanding of urban poverty in the high middle ages. She explores the ways in which cultural elites thought about the poor and shows that their conceptions of poor men and women were derived from the roles assigned to men and women in the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis - men are associated with productive labour; of labour within the public realm, and women with reproductive labour; or labour within the private realm.

In the thirteenth century, Paris was the largest city in Western Europe, the royal capital of France, and the seat of one of Europe's most important universities. In this vibrant and cosmopolitan city, the beguines, women who wished to devote their lives to Christian ideals without taking formal vows, enjoyed a level of patronage and esteem that was uncommon among like communities elsewhere. Some Parisian beguines owned shops and played a vital role in the city's textile industry and economy. French royals and nobles financially supported the beguinages, and university clerics looked to the beguines for inspiration in their pedagogical endeavors. The Beguines of Medieval Paris examines these religious communities and their direct participation in the city's commercial, intellectual, and religious life. Drawing on an array of sources, including sermons, religious literature, tax rolls, and royal account books, Tanya Stabler Miller contextualizes the history of Parisian beguines within a spectrum of lay religious activity and theological controversy. She examines the impact of women on the construction of medieval clerical identity, the valuation of women's voices and activities, and the surprising ways in which local networks and legal structures permitted women to continue to identify as beguines long after a church council prohibited the beguine status. Based on intensive archival research, The Beguines of Medieval Paris makes an original contribution to the history of female religiosity and labor, university politics and intellectual debates, royal piety, and the central place of Paris in the commerce and culture of medieval Europe.

A first-hand view of life in medieval France, as seen through the eyes of an elderly man instructing his young wife. The Goodman of Paris (Le Ménagier de Paris) wrote this book for the instruction of his young wife around 1393. He was a wealthy and learned man, a member of that enlightened haute bourgeoisie upon which the French monarchy was coming to lean with increasing confidence. When he wrote his Treatise he was at least sixty but had recently married a young wife some forty years his junior. It fell to her to make his declining years comfortable, but it was his task to make it easy for her to do so. The first part deals with her religious and moral duties: as well as giving a unique picture of the medieval view of wifely behaviour it is illustrated by a series of storiesdrawn from the Goodman's extensive reading and personal experience. In the second part he turns from theory to practice and from soul to body, compiling the most exhaustive treatise on household management which has come downto us from the middle ages. Gardening, hiring of servants, the purchase and preparation of food are all covered, culminating in a detailed and elaborate cookery book. Sadly the author died before he could complete the third section on hawking, games and riddles. This unique glimpse of medieval domestic life presents a worldly, dignified and compelling picture in the words of a man of sensibility and substance. The distinguished historian EILEEN POWER was Professor of Economic History at the University of Cambridge.