Walled Towns and the Shaping of France: From the Medieval to the Early Modern Era

This book focuses on the ways in which military technology, political and social trends, and shifting frontiers shaped the emergence of new forms of public authority and civic life as embodied in the “wall,” an image at once intensely physical and deeply symbolic. It traces the evolution of towns across much of what is today France from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century when the walls began to come down, opening up new, ultimately revolutionary possibilities for urban life. This long-term perspective on town fortifications—how they were built, the contests to control them, and how they shaped the lives of people both inside and outside them—in the end tell us much about the making of France.