Paysage urbain en transition à Coventry : processus de formation et de transformation urbaine dans une cité médiévale anglaise

Abstract

English historiography on the development of urban spaces during the medieval era is dominated, especially among historians and archaeologists, by the persistence of the organic growth theory, which it is necessary to challenge. The geographer M. R. G. Conzen did much to challenge this model through his technique of analysing town and city maps, whilst at the same time opening up debate on the process of medieval urban formation and transformation that conventional documentary sources often hide. By using the Conzen method, the map of the city of Coventry reveals the medieval history of its morphogenesis. The examination focuses on the stages of urban formation, in particular on the phenomenon of suburbanisation and the different processes of urban transformation.