UNE EXPERIENCE COMMUNALE. SOCIETE ET CULTURE POLITIQUE A MARSEILLE ENTRE XIIE ET XIIIE SIECLE.

Until recently, the historiography of medieval communes has struggled to assert itself outside the analytical framework of central and northern Italy of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Yet during these two centuries, urban Provence provided a geographical space and a cultural horizon that were particularly conducive to a full development and a conscious use of the political institutions and social languages specific to medieval communal civilisation. Based on the case study of Marseilles, the most important Provençal city of the medieval period and one of the most dynamic Mediterranean ports of the thirteenth century, the aim of this research is to examine once again the question of the socio-political structures of the medieval communes, placing at the centre of the approach the study of city society itself as well as that of the political culture that this society promoted. In contrast to the old interpretative tradition which sought to reduce the importance of towns in the context of the French Middle Ages, in favour of the prestige accorded to the formation of the central State, a new approach to the Marseilles « communal experience » is thus proposed, reassessing in particular the original political culture that underpinned this experience. This underlines the importance of socio-institutional and socio-political dynamics in understanding the nature, locals adaptation and historical evolution of the cultural matrix of the medieval communes.