When the town becomes a stage: royal entries and municipal power in medieval Montpellier (14th-15th Centuries)

Abstract

The urban chronicle of Montpellier known under the nickname of the “Petit Thalamus” (1204-1423) is the oldest one written in a vernacular language all over Western Europe; it contains the narrations of many princely, royal and even pontifical and imperial entries in the town. It allows us to question the emergence and the evolution of a ritual, not so much from the point of view of the monarchy but of the urban authorities. More than the ritual itself, the study of these narrations, compared when possible to other urban sources, reveals the process of memory selection by the consulate of Montpellier, magnifying some of the entries—especially the pontifical one made by Urbain V in 1367—and leaving some others into oblivion. It also highlights the flexibility of a civic ceremony—which can, sometimes, be turned into a mere performance deprived of political meaning—used by the magistrates to reinforce their own power on urban spaces and to inscribe their domination into the streets, the minds of the inhabitants and the memory of the community.