Mapping the Medieval Woman

Histories of the architecture and urban landscape of medieval Paris have often concentrated on the impressive works of patronage of male rulers, for example Louis IX (1214–1270) and Charles V (1338–1380). But the paradigms we inherit are inflected with centuries of male-focused policies, histories, and social conceptions, often leading scholars to overlook or even erase women’s important contributions to the cityscape of Paris. This project seeks to undo this erasure and demonstrate that women, their bodies, their commissions, and their interactions were not only there, but were simply everywhere. It was not at all exceptional to see their marks on the urban landscape, their presence in work spaces, their bodies in processions in the streets, their tombs in the chapels of ecclesiastical spaces, and their generosity on display throughout the city. By mapping these sites, the many women patrons, workers, residents, and monastics come into view together.