La topographie de Lyon au Moyen Age

Abstract

A lot of studies have been made on Lyons, a town that could be considered well known. A systematic study of the topography of the town in the Middle Ages, using particularly the regressive method, together with a deep investigation in the archives, allows details to be given of the outstanding morphological blocks, like the precincts, the building plots, or the main channels of communication and their evolution. Some facts and their dating remain nevertheless at a stage of hypothesis, partly because little archeological information is available, in comparison with the involved questions. It is thus possible to outline the town of the IXth century, reduced to a block ofecclesiastical buildings and their outbuildings. The growth really occurs slowly in the XIth century, then at an accelerating rate between the years 1180 and 1230, after this the town did not become bigger until the XVIth century. The three main parts of Lyons seem to have followed a parallel growth, around the districts of St-Just and St-Irénée to the South-East, St-Jean and St-Paul on the right bank of the Saône, and around Notre-Dame-de-la-Platière, probably the heart of the town as known in the IXth century on the peninsula.