Helynevek és hatalom

The paper analyses the spatial aspects and the writing down of the publication ritual of royal and local ordinances in late medieval Paris, based on the study of the register books of the royal provost in the Châtelet (Archives nationales de France, Y2-Y6), the Livres de couleur. The majority of the publications are described as made « at the accustomed places », and only a small part (cc.50) of the registered publication rituals are documented with a list of place names. Their microscopic study helps to understand the detailed workings of medieval power rituals. The analysis of the lists shows that the ritual of the publication was far from invariable and fixed by customs. On the contrary, different ordinances were published at different urban locations, and the publication ritual was performed on a great variety of itineraries. Besides the variability of the ritual itself, the writing down of the publication has its own strategies. The listing of place names fits perfectly into the pool of mostly verbal methods of medieval representation of geographic space and has its rhetoric value too. However, listing constitutes only a minority of the documented cases, the allusion to the customary progress of the ritual (performed at the « accustomed places ») appears much more frequently. This method creates the image of the invariable, customary, aka ideal ritual, ensuring the coming into force of the published ordinances. Thus, the practices of proclamation and their written documentation are both used to guarantee the effectiveness of the ritual and the everyday presence of royal power in the city.