Réceptions et inscriptions à la bourgeoisie de Lille aux XIVème et XVème siècles

Abstract

The object of this study is to provide students with a complete series of figures concerning the receptions to the Lille "bourgeoisie", either through hereditary rights or by purchase, between 1291 and 1499, a series completed through the systematic confrontation of all available material, mainly the "registres aux bourgeois" and the yearly municipal accounts. The critical survey of these sources yields some relatively new conclusions : — the fee required of the sons of "bourgeois" to take over their father's "bourgeoisie", essentially of a symbolical character, was never altered and remained immutably fixed to 4 "sous" and 2 "deniers". — the particularly heavy entrance fee set, since the XIII century, as an obstacle to the entry of outsiders, has been progressively lowered down since the XV century through the joined influence of monetary depreciation and of a fraud whose existence could not yet be entirely proved. — the evolution of the "bourgeois" population of Lille in the XIV and XV centuries is in perfect agreement with the opinions generally held upon the evolution of town populations in France during this period.