13th century Paris. Energy constraints and institutional arrangements

Résumé En

These are problems that cannot be solved here, obviously. But they have to be borne in mind as we proceed. For the fact of this economic expansion is of essential importance if we want to understand the whole dynamic of medieval society in these central centuries,and indeed later; but when it is explored here, it must be recognize how far basic data andinterpretations are missing. Some general points are clear: the fact that Paris and the Parisbasin became unusually economically active in the twelfth century, for example, is a basiccontext for the growth of the Paris Schools and, later, university (for there was no pointattracting students if there were no infrastructure to feed them) as well for the capacity ofPhilipp II of France, with only a restricted territory under his direct control, to match theresources of John of England in their wars in the early thirteenth century, and also for theconcentration of resources which produced the striking density of very expensive newgothic cathedral in every city of northern France. But, having said that, we must behonest and admit that we do not really understand how the economy of the Paris regionworked in this period