Search

Immersed in a new environment, the settlers, travelers, missionaries and authors of travelogues on New France frequently gave prominence to the description of fauna in their works, emphasizing its diversity and above all its abundance: Samuel de Champlain, Jacques Cartier, Gabriel Sagard, Pierre Boucher and others marvelled at the profusion of migratory birds, the incredible richness of the St. Lawrence River in terms of fishing, as well as the multitude of moose, bears, caribou, stags, foxes, wolves, beavers and deer. Their ample presence is associated with the rural, natural world, with the boreal forests that were their habitat. On the other hand, indigenous species of animals were much less assimilated with the urban setting of the historiographical landscape. The tendency of a great number of them to come closer to man, combined with the proximity of the city with a diversity of terrestrial, avian and aquatic wildlife, allows us, however, to assume they were present there. Taking as a setting Montreal and especially Quebec City--for which information is more abundant--this article looks at the interaction between urban colonial society and its environment between 1663 and 1763. It seeks to measure the extent to which wildlife--essentially the passenger pigeon--played a role in city life and its organization, giving rise to practices such as hunting in urban spaces. Research allows us to transpose an issue generally connected to the rural world to an environment with which it was not necessarily associated, making it possible to understand, through non-human agents, the way in which a society appropriates, shapes, manages and conceives its space. Keywords: urban history, city, hunting, passenger pigeon, Quebec City, firearms, animals, nature Immerges dans un nouvel environnement, les colons, voyageurs, missionnaires et auteurs de recits de voyage de la Nouvelle-France accordent frequemment une large place a la description de la faune dans leurs ouvrages, soulignant sa diversite et surtout son abondance : Samuel de Champlain, Jacques Cartier, Gabriel Sagard, Pierre Boucher comme d'autres s'emerveillent devant le foisonnement d'oiseaux migrateurs, l'incroyable richesse halieutique du fleuve Saint-Laurent, ainsi que la multitude d'orignaux, ours, caribous, cerfs, renards, loups, castors, ou chevreuils. Leur presence genereuse est associee au monde rural, sauvage, aux forets boreales qui forment leur habitat. En revanche, les especes animales indigenes sont beaucoup moins assimilees au milieu urbain au sein du paysage historiographique. La tendance d'un tres grand nombre d'entre elles a se rapprocher de l'homme, joint a la proximite de la ville avec une faune terrestre, aviaire ou aquatique nombreuse, permet pourtant d'y supposer leur presence. Prenant pour cadre Montreal et surtout Quebec, pour laquelle les informations sont les plus abondantes, cet article se penche sur les interactions entre la societe urbaine coloniale et son environnement, entre 1663 et 1763. Il vise a mesurer a quel degres la faune sauvage--essentiellement la tourte--joue un role dans la vie citadine et son organisation, faisant emerger des pratiques comme celle de la chasse dans l'espace urbain. La recherche permet donc de transposer une problematique generalement liee au monde rural vers un milieu au sein duquel elle n'est pas forcement associee, permettant de saisir, a travers les agents non humains, la maniere dont une societe s'approprie, faconne, gere, et concoit son espace. Mots-cles : histoire urbaine, ville, chasse, tourte, Quebec, armes a feu, animaux, nature, Le 3 juillet 1608, Samuel de Champlain remonte le fleuve Saint-Laurent et s'installe sur la pointe de ce qui deviendra la ville de Quebec afin d'y etablir un comptoir de [...]

Focusing on the Belgian cities of Namur and Liège in the eighteenth century, this article proposes to open a discussion around legal versus illegal butchery, and the description of how it was regulated: by limiting slaughter to specific locations, specific trades, and specific times, and by the work of the people in charge of inspecting foodstuffs. At the heart of this study is the butchery animal—that is, large animals—and the profession in charge of it: the butchers. Given the importance of meat products in consumption practices, the city's butchers had a central place: gathered in a guild, they had a privileged status, including a virtual monopoly on the slaughter of butchery animals and the sale of raw meat. However, as the meat economy was developing, master butchers were faced with a multitude of vendors who undermined their position and threatened health standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The horses transporting men and merchandise were key actors in urban development at the very time they placed the city's ability to organize and adapt in doubt. Cities of the southernmost Netherlands and the Principality of Liège were forced to cope with the constant challenge represented by traffic in poorly designed arteries, with a morphology inherited from the medieval period and completely ill-suited to the movement of carriages and wagons. The problem posed by traffic in Belgian cities reached a critical threshold in the seventeenth century, a period in which we observe an increase in the number of horses and harnessed teams. The complications caused by this growing surge culminated in the next century and were marked by the formation of a police force obliged to face the challenge traffic represented. Consequently, numerous urban decisions were taken, transforming both the street's 'lifestyle' and physiognomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Histoire Urbaine is the property of Societe Francaise d'Histoire Urbaine and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)