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What mapping reveals: silk and the reorganization of urban space in Lyons, c. 1600–1900

Part of: Thinking Spatially: New Horizons for Urban History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2020

Bernard Gauthiez Open the ORCID record for Bernard Gauthiez [Opens in a new window]
Bernard Gauthiez*
Affiliation:
Université de Lyon/Lyon3 Jean-Moulin, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unité, Mixte de Recherche 5600, 18 rue Chevreul 69001, Lyon, France
*
*Corresponding author. Email: bernard.gauthiez@univ-lyon3.fr
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Abstract

The article considers where and how the silk industry was located in the urban space of Lyons. It also explores how the changing nature of silk production and manufacture influenced the institutional arrangements and physical character of the city. Several sub-periods are considered between the early seventeenth to the early twentieth century, each with different spatial logics largely defined by changes in the governance of the trade. This study offers new insights into how a dominant industrial activity reorganized the spaces of a major city and how the resulting social structure affected its spatial pattern. In so doing, space is accorded a more central role in understanding urban development, while recognizing that social, economic and political forces also modify this materiality. Historical Geographical Information Systems (HGIS) facilitate greater precision in terms of urban locations and thereby utilize written qualitative and quantitative sources more effectively.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 47 , Special Issue 3: Thinking spatially: new horizons for urban history , August 2020 , pp. 448 - 466
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Higher resolution, colour versions of the figures in this article can be viewed online as supplementary material. Follow the URL at the end of this article.

References

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4 Federico draws a line between brokers and dealers in the nineteenth century. The situation is more blurred in the previous period (ibid., 156). See also Cayez, P., Métiers Jacquard et Hauts-Fourneaux. Aux origines de l'industrie Lyonnaise (Lyons, 1978), 35–7, 42Google Scholar.

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10 http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk/projects?ref=AH%2FK002457%2F1, accessed 19 Jul. 2017.

11 Archives Municipales de Lyon (AML) HH 159, 436 merchant-manufacturers in Sep. 1752.

12 There were 5,884 workshops in 1788, Verninac, R., Description physique et politique du département du Rhône (Lyons, 1801)Google Scholar; Godart, L'ouvrier en soie, 25.

13 AML HH 159, 23 Mar. 1720: list, B. Ganin: 105 workshops and 250 looms; Denis father and son: 130 workshops and 240 looms; J.-B. Lacour, idem; Reverony brothers and son: 100 workshops and 200 looms; Fay and Brossard: 70 workshops and 200 looms. The maximum known number of looms controlled by a single individual, the merchant Neyret, is about 500 in 1615 or a little later, AML HH 156. Neyret was associated with Narguys.

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17 11 Jun. 1619, AML BB 155, fols. 313–21. See also fols. 260–3 for the demands of the workers.

18 AML HH 501, 12 Aug. 1619.

19 AML HH 159.

20 In 1643, 61 bales of raw silk from Genoa, Leghorn, Rome and Barcelona were intercepted by the authorities because the custom dues had not been paid in Marseilles. 18 Lyons merchants and proprietors of the bales are listed. 8 of them also figure among the 245 people in Lyon who had to pay the tax on the rich in 1640. They were mainly located in the Change area. This list of rich tax payers also gives a few other names known to be associated with the silk trade, for example Mey and Manis, also located in the same area. AML CC 328, 4 Feb. 1640, Taxe sur les Ayzés.

21 AML CC 4349, Grande visite des ouvriers en soie.

22 AML CC 328, Taxe sur les Ayzés.

23 Chiron and Fay had to comply in 1620–21, AML HH 624_1. Pincety had not yet complied in 1626, AML HH 501.

24 Archives Départementales du Rhône (ADR) 10 H 795.

25 There was an increase of about 300% in the quarter to the north of Terreaux and between Terreaux and Cordeliers, 100% on the west bank of the Saône River and 600% between the Cordeliers and Place Bellecour, AML HH 159, data for 1575, 1601 and 1621.

26 AML HH 624_1, 7 Nov. 1665. When the privilege to weave was granted in 1665 to Octavio Mey, a merchant of Italian origin, even though he had not previously been a compagnon, his premises were still located on the Montée St-Barthélémy to the west of the Change.

27 AML HH 159, 20% increase in the quarter to the north of Terreaux from 1621 to 1660, fall of 25% between Terreaux and Cordeliers, fall of 100% south of Cordeliers.

28 AML HH 561–562–564–565.

29 AML HH 624_1, 22 Mar. 1641. Jacobins = Dominicans = White Friars. The chapel was placed beside the one established by the gold and silver thread makers in 1633, dedicated to St-Eloi, as well as to the chapel of the silk dyers.

30 ADR 10 G 802.

31 ADR 3 H 47. He moved to this location between 1610 and 1623.

32 AML HH 587, as an example of this practice, the registering of the new compagnons (journeymen) was undertaken in the house of Balthazard Berthelier, master-guard of the corporation, in 1678–79.

33 AML HH 587, 28 Nov. 1724, the plot was acquired on 27 Oct. 1725 from the Jacobins.

34 27 Oct. 1725, AML HH 624_1.

35 AM, HH 566, fol. 42, count of the construction works, achieved 1728. AML HH 567, fol. 1v: the total cost of the building was 99,830 livres, 15 sous, 1 denier.

36 In three gilded lines engraved over the doorframe are the words: ‘Maison et bureau /des marchands en étoffes de /soie, or et argent. 1727’.

37 ADR HH 159 for both dates.

38 AML CC 4187, pièce 31, eight bankers dwelled on Rue de la Monnoye near or within the Royal Mint.

39 M. Weber, Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (Tübingen, 1934).

40 AML HH 624_1.

41 AML HH 577.

42 Arrêt du conseil d’état, 26 Aug. 1776, registered by the parlement of Paris on 20 Jun. 1777.

43 AML HH 624_3, 5 Apr. 1781, sold to Vingtrinier for a price below the cost of construction.

44 AML HH 624_3, Mar. 1779.

45 Gonon, P.-M., Vaucanson à Lyon en 1744, documents historiques pour servir à l'histoire de Lyon au XVIIIe siècle (Lyons, 1843)Google Scholar; Zeller, O., ‘Géographie des troubles et découpages urbains à Lyon (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles)’, in Actes du 114e Congrès national des sociétés savantes (Paris, 1989), 43–59Google Scholar.

46 AML DD 53, building authorization 12 Dec. 1743. Blaise Denis had also been consul of the city. His building is still standing.

47 Gauthiez, B., ‘Trasformazione dei valori urbani tra settecento e ottocento: il caso di Lione’, Storia Urbana, 71 (1995), 149–70Google Scholar.

48 AML 316 WP 208. The son of Antoine Tolozan, Louis, was treasurer of the city from 1776 to 1784. He was replaced as treasurer by Alexis-Antoine Regny, a banker, whose house was located nearby Rue Puits-Gaillot (Passeron, J.S., Notice sur Louis Tolozan de Montfort (Lyons, 1837)Google Scholar). Tolozan's son later became prévôt des marchands, i.e. mayor of the city, from 1784 to 1789.

49 Rue Ste-Catherine, ADR 1 L 1031.

50 The premises of Pernon and Vouty still exist today.

51 Gauthiez, B., ‘Géographie urbaine et espaces du voyage: les voyageuses britanniques à Lyon, fin XVIIIe–début XIXe siècle’, in Baudino, I. (ed.), Les voyageuses britanniques au XVIIIe siècle, l'etape lyonnaise dans l'itinéraire du Grand-Tour (Paris, 2015), 77–96Google Scholar.

52 It seems that its development was already very high in the 1600s, after the organizational edict of Henry IV in 1599. In 1619, it is said that 30,000 persons made their living from the trade, AML BB 155, fol. 260.

53 AML I2 46bis, report by Déglize.

54 Named after the Club des Jacobins in Paris from whence had emerged the government.

55 ADR 1 L 22.

56 AML 916 WP 001–002–003–004, building authorizations registers.

57 Cayez, Métiers Jacquard, 144–5. The Jacquard loom allowed for an increase of up to four times the production of a single loom.

58 Thiaffait was previously the owner of a famous café established in the late eighteenth century by Spreafico Place des Terreaux. It is likely that this café was already the meeting point of the merchant-manufacturers and that Thiaffait had a decisive role in the creation of their cercle.

59 Registers AML 921 WP 060 (1820) to AML 921 WP 121 (1828).

60 AML 316 WP 181, building authorization on 29 Apr. 1829 to Lenoir and Miège. The well-known merchant-fabricant Bonnet moved into this building in 1834 (Pansu, H., Claude-Joseph Bonnet. Soierie et société à Lyon et en Bugey au XIXe siècle (Lyons and Jujurieux, 2003Google Scholar), 206.

61 Cayez, Métiers Jacquard, 178–9.

62 AML 316 WP 020, authorization given to Tarpan.

63 AML 316 WP 021, 24 Sept. 1827, authorization given to Canard, who later bought the neighbouring Tarpan building. See also Longworth's American Almanac, New-York Register and City Directory (New York, 1834). In 1835, the company originally named Thompson, Austen and Wymbs became simply Thompson and Austen, probably after the departure of Wymbs to Lyons. Wymbs was still the American consul in 1839, and listed among the main American brokers in silk-ware in Lyons, at the same address 22 Lafont, Rue: Almanach général de la France et de l'etranger pour l'année 1839 (Paris, 1839), 1087Google Scholar. American brokers were never numerous in Lyons.

64 Almanach historique et politique de la ville de Lyon et du département du Rhône pour l'an de grâce 1828 (Lyons, 1828), 80.

65 Data from the annual censuses, AML 321 WP series.

66 7 Rue de l'Arbre-Sec, AML 921 WP 117, census of 1827, owned by Mrs Plagne, with six rooms.

67 Cayez, Métiers Jacquard, 421.

68 See Gauthiez, B., ‘La transformation de Lyon et Paris au second Empire: le projet du ministère de l'Intérieur De Persigny, les exécutants Haussmann et Vaïsse’, in Casamento, A. (ed.), Fondazioni urbane, città nuove Europee dal medioevo al novecento (Rome, 2012), 323–44Google Scholar.

69 Fourniau, Ch., et, ‘“Cité” “centre d'activité”, étude de géographie urbaine sur le centre de Lyon’, Les études rhodaniennes, 19 (1944), 141–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 AML 921 WP 151, annual census.

71 Cayez, P., ‘Une proto-industrialisation décalée: la ruralisation de la soierie lyonnaise dans la première moitié du XXe siècle’, Revue du Nord, 248 (1981), 95–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 102; Bourgeon, M.-L., ‘Répartition des métiers de tissage de la soie au service de la fabrique Lyonnaise en 1936–37’, Les études rhodaniennes, 4 (1938), 215–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 226; Morand, M., ‘Statistique des métiers de tissage au service de la fabrique lyonnaise’, Comptes-rendus des travaux de la chambre de commerce de Lyon (Lyons, 1914), 94–110Google Scholar.

72 See how Zeller, O. studies the sub-systems separately in La ville moderne, histoire de l'Europe urbaine, vol. III (Paris, 2012), 307–56Google Scholar: control, management, food and beverages, health, social relief.

73 A sub-system is here understood not exactly like Goody's ones: ‘religion, economy, politics and rights’ (Goody, The Logic of Writing, xvii), but as a group of social constructs, institutions, workshops, etc., involved in a common production or public service: economic production, public service, religious organization.

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