“Christinian Politics, the Tavern, and Urban Revolt in Late Medieval France”
Susan J. Dudash

To believe Christine de Pizan, the medieval tavern was the meeting place of choice for seditious rebels, bourgeois upstarts, and lazy, loitering workers—the locus of social fomentation par excellence.  A look at the problematics of the tavern in the wider context of Christine’s political thought illuminates her view of the role and function of the “menu peuple” in French society.  While the author often presents herself as an intercessor between the noble, chivalric class and the populace, her precise position vis-à-vis the people is nuanced and shifts from work to work.

In the Mutacion de Fortune (1402-03), the frequenting of taverns is used as the defining characteristic of the urban “menu peuple”:  they drink away their day’s earnings, beat each other up, and give themselves over to gluttony.  Village dwellers, by contrast, are less blameworthy, their faults being related mostly to cheating. . .

In the Livre de la paix (1412-13), at once a call to peace, mirror for princes, and eyewitness account of contemporary crises and legal policies, Christine’s view of the people, especially in an urban milieu, is again quite negative.  But here the emphasis is less on the moral failings of the frequenters of taverns than on the potential for social unrest and its consequences for French society at large.  In the Paix, Christine attempts to offer solutions to the major crises of her time:  internal and external war and civil unrest.  Urban conflict and its resolution are thus seen in the wider context of universal peace and a just society.  Christine simultaneously condemns the institutions and rulers that allow, and even profit from, urban revolts and endorses policies that suppress rebellion, such as the institution of vagrancy policies, articulated in the contemporary Ordonnances Cabochiennes, aimed at the idle patrons of taverns.  She thus demonstrates both compassion for and distrust of the people. 

In the Livre de la paix Christine uses the tavern and its potential for rebellion as a focal point for laying out one of her strategies for achieving peace:  to prevent internal strife from above (by having rulers treat their subjects justly) and from below (by keeping the people from upsetting the existing class structure).