¹ Heal, A., The Signboards of Old London Shops (London, 1947), 2.Google Scholar Heal reproduces illustrations of many eighteenth-century signs and of some streetscapes. Photographs of surviving signs may be found in L.B. and Ballinger, R.A., Sign, Symbol and Form (New York, 1972).Google Scholar For illustrations of Paris signs see Fournier, E., Histoire des enseignes de Paris (Paris, 1884)Google Scholar; Fegdal, C., Les Vieilles enseignes de Paris (Paris, 1913)Google Scholar; Billy, P., Vieilles enseignes de Paris en fer forgé (Paris, c. 1925).Google Scholar Grand-Carteret, J., L'Enseigne, son histoire, sa philosophie, ses particularités, les boutiques, les maisons, la rue, la réclame commerciale à Lyon (Grenoble, 1902)Google Scholar reproduces many Lyon signs. For Geneva, see Baudin, H., L'Enseigne et l'affiche (Geneva, 1905).Google Scholar There are many books on British inn signs: for a general survey see Delderfield, E., British Inn Signs and their Stories (Newton Abbot, 1972Google Scholar; first published 1965).

² In London the signs were apparently purely pictorial until at least the late seventeenth century: Phythian-Adams, C., ‘Milk and soot. The changing vocabulary of a popular ritual in Stuart and Hanoverian London’, in Fraser, D. and Sutcliffe, A. (eds), The Pursuit of Urban History (London, 1983), 84.Google Scholar

³ Adolphe Berty found two in Paris from 1206 and 1212. He argued that they were probably more numerous than the records suggest, but he adds that there was no doubt less need for them in the less crowded outer areas than in the city centres: this corresponds to their thirteenth-century distribution: ‘Les enseignes de Paris avant Ia XVIIe siècle’, Revue archéologique, 12 (1855), 1, 2.Google Scholar In a later article studying central Paris in detail, ‘Trois îots de la Cité’, Revue archéologique, n.s., 1 & 2 (1860), 197–215, 366–90, the earliest sign found by Berty dates from the 1340s and the house-lists for this part of Paris in 1280 do not contain any. See also Grand-Carteret, , L'Enseigne, 131Google Scholar; Berger, A., ‘Lea enseignes de Paris’, Journal des débats, 24/25 05 and 1 06 1858 (24/25 May)Google Scholar; Fournier, , Histoire des enseignes de Paris, 110.Google Scholar

⁴ Gay, , Trivia, or The Art of Walking the Streets of London (1716)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, canto 1, quoted in Larwood, J. and Hotten, J.C., The History of Signboards, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (London, 1866), 17.Google Scholar L.-S. Mercier also comments on the noise made by the signs, Tableau de Paris, 12 vols (Amsterdam, 1782–88), vol. 1, 215.

⁵ Berger, , ‘Lea enseignes de Paris’, 24/25 05 1858.Google Scholar

⁶ Larwood, and Hotten, , Signboards, vii.Google Scholar

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⁸ Heal, , Signboards, 2Google Scholar; Larwood, and Hotten, , Signboards, vGoogle Scholar; Baudin, , L'Enseigne, 11.Google Scholar Essentially the same explanations are given by Papin, Y.-D., ‘L' enseigne au XVIIIe siècle’, in Caceres, G. Gomez y and de Pierredon, M. Ange (eds), Les Décors des boutiques parisiennes (Paris, 1987).Google Scholar Grand-Carteret offers both explanations, but suggests that signs first emerged as a form of decoration motivated by the desire to make the houses distinctive, first employed by nobles with their coats of arms, later imitated by artisans and merchants: L'Enseigne, 31–2.

⁹ Delderfield, , British Inn Signs, 17.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Trivia, quoted in Larwood, and Hotten, , Signboards, 17.Google Scholar

¹¹ A point also made by Blayney, P., The Bookshops in Paul's Cross Churchyard, Bibliographical Society Occasional Paper No. 5 (London, 1990), 10.Google Scholar

¹² Archives Nationales, Paris, S*1642, censive de Sainte Geneviève, c 1766-, rue des Postes nos. 2,3,7. Henceforth all manuscript references are to the Archives Nationales unless otherwise stated. The eight most popular names accounted for eighty-five of Adolphe Berty's sample of 600 Paris house names: ‘Enseignes de Paris’, 5.

¹³ Larwood, and Hotten, , Signboards, 19.Google Scholar

¹⁴ S*5693, f. 63V^o. S5683, f. 153.

¹⁵ Mercier, , Tableau de Paris, vol. 5, 122.Google Scholar

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¹⁷ S*1953 (1), f. 119.

¹⁸ Quoted in Lillywhite, B., London Signs (London, 1972), xvii.Google Scholar See the similar complaint in the Adventurer, no. 9 (1752), quoted in Larwood, and Hotten, , Signboards, 22–3.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Quoted in Lillywhite, , London Signs, xvii.Google Scholar

²⁰ My thanks to Professor Sybil Jack for this information. On Berne, Baudin, L'Enseigne, 23.

²¹ For London see Lillywhite, , London Signs, xvi, 3.Google Scholar

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²³ S*1642, censier of Sainte Geneviève, 1766–1789, f. 291.

²⁴ Mercier, , Tableau de Paris, vol. 5, 122.Google Scholar

²⁵ See Table 1. This even applied when the sign was engraved in stone on the facade: Berty, , ‘Enseignes de Paris’, 3.Google Scholar

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²⁷ C. Percier and P. Fontaine, quoted by Tulard, J., Nouvelle histoire de Paris. Le Consulat et l'Empire (Paris, [1970]), 195.Google Scholar

²⁸ See the list of booksellers' signs in the Short Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland and Ireland, 1475–1640, 2nd ed., vol. 3 (London, 1991), 232–40.Google Scholar

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³⁰ Lillywhite, , London Signs, 73.Google Scholar

³¹ Lillywhite, , London Signs, 328Google Scholar; Short Title Catalogue, 2nd ed., vol. 3, 232–40.Google Scholar

³² Lillywhite, , London Signs, 307–10, 328.Google Scholar Nevertheless, a ‘King's Head’ and a ‘King's Arms’ are listed among the booksellers' signs in the Short Title Catalogue, 2nd ed., vol. 3, 327.Google Scholar

³³ Macaulay, Biographical Essays, ‘Frederick the Great’, quoted in Larwood, and Hotten, , Signboards, 54.Google Scholar On Vernon's earlier popularity for British signs see Wilson, K., ‘Empire, trade and popular politics in mid-Hanoverian Britain: the case of Admiral Vernon’, Past and Present, 121 (11 1988), 85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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³⁷ S*5693, f. 63v^o S5683, f. 153. Livre terriers of Fief de l'Oursine, 1717,1754.

³⁸ Larwood, and Hotten, , Signboards, 279.Google Scholar The same feeling may have motivated the mid-seventeenth-century Geneva Consistory to order the removal of ‘A l'ange’ (the Angel). The sentiment lasted longer in this stronghold of Calvinism, for in the eighteenth century the Consistory ordered the replacement of a sign of the three kings with a sculpture of the kings of England, France and Prussia. Baudin, , L'Enseigne, 36.Google Scholar

³⁹ H 3382, accounts of the Abbey of Saint Marcel, 1761, expenses, chapter 11, extraordinary expenditure. Phythian-Adams, ‘Milk and soot’, 84. Roche, D., The People of Paris (Leamington Spa, 1987; first published Paris, 1981), 226–8.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Lillywhite, , London Signs, 334, 525Google Scholar and illustration facing p. 1. Baudin, , L'Enseigne, 17.Google Scholar

⁴¹ S*1637. f. 484. The best hats were made from beaver fur.

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⁴⁴ Larwood, and Hotten, , Signboards, 471Google Scholar; Lillywhite, , London Signs, xvii.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Blayney, , Bookshops, 49.Google Scholar Blayney also suggests that when John Williams chose the‘Crown and Globe’ for his sign, he was making a direct allusion to two earlier shops bearing those names, owned by members of the Waterson family (p. 47). Teynac, F., Nolot, P. and Vivien, L.-D., Wallpaper. A History (London, 1982Google Scholar; first published Paris, 1981), 38, cite a mid-eighteenth-century law case over a sign used by the pupil of a craftsman, despite the fart that the master's widow had taken over the shop: she sued, and lost!

⁴⁶ S*1637, f. 529. S1914, list of 1673.

⁴⁷ Grand-Carteret, , L'Enseigne, 90.Google Scholar Y10994,24 May 1752, witness 9. S*1642, rue du Puits L'hermite, no. 4; rue Censier, no. 14. Dezobry, C., ‘Archéologie future ou Grandeur et Décadence des Enseignes de boutiques en France et surtout à Paris’, Revue archéologique, 14 (10 1857-03 1858), 739.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Blayney, , Bookshops, 45Google Scholar; Larwood, and Hotten, , Signboards, 473Google Scholar; Heal, , Signboards, 31Google Scholar; S*1637, f. 490. For similar examples see Teynac, et al. , Wallpaper, 30Google Scholar; Fegdal, , Vieilles enseignes, 138Google Scholar; Grand-Carteret, , L'Enseigne, 47.Google Scholar

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⁵¹ S*1637, f. 475. S*1641, rue Triperet, no. 4. S*1637, ff. 561,571. S*1942, f. 52v^o. See also Grand-Carteret, , L'Enseigne, 52.Google Scholar

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⁵⁴ S*1637, f. 561.S*1668, f. 551.

⁵⁵ S*1664, f. 92 and S*1641, rue Censier, no. 16.

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⁵⁸ Garrioch, D., Neighbourhood and Community in Paris, 1740–1790 (Cambridge, 1986), 28.Google Scholar On seventeenth-century London, see Boulton, J., Neighbourhood and Society. A London Suburb in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1987), esp. 138–9, 143–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁶² S*1953 (1), f. 246. S*1954², f. 338v^o.

⁶³ Y10994,21 September, 12 October 1752.

⁶⁴ Heal, , Signboards 2.Google Scholar

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⁷⁵ Bergeron, L., Banquiers, négociants et manufacturiers parisiens du Directoire à l'Empire (Paris, 1975), 446–8.Google Scholar

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⁸⁰ Davidoff, and Hall, , Family Fortunes, 52–7.Google Scholar The engraving is reproduced on p. 54.

⁸¹ Davidoff, and Hall, , Family Fortunes, 157–8.Google Scholar Seabrook, J., ‘Unpublished commonplace book’ (c. 1830)Google Scholar, quoted in ibid., 361–2.

⁸² Burke, P., Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London, 1978).Google Scholar For Paris, Garrioch, , Neighbourhood and Community, 99–101.Google Scholar Boisay, P., The English Urban Renaissance (Oxford, 1989), chs 10,11Google Scholar, describes the new forms of sociability and the widening marriage markets, all part of a quest for status in English provincial towns.

⁸³ For this and what follows see my forthcoming book on family and politics in the Faubourg Saint Marcel; Daumard, , Bourgeoisie parisienne, 382–6.Google Scholar On the role of the parish in seventeenth-century London see Early, P., The Mating of the English Middle Class (London, 1989), 240–8Google Scholar and Boulton, Neighbourhood and Society. On this family pattern more generally, see esp. Goody, J., The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1983), 222–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Kent, F.W., Household and Lineage, passim.Google Scholar

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⁸⁷ On commuting in Paris see Faure, A., ‘Les déplacements de travail entre Paris et sa banlieue (1880–1914): première approche’, Ville en parallèle, 10 (06 1986), 232–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This has been more closely studied in American cities than in European ones: see notably Hershberg, T., Cox, H.E., Light, D.B. Jr, and Greenfield, R.R., ‘The “journey to work”: an empirical investigation of work, residence and transportation, Philadelphia, 1850 and 1880’, in Hershberg, T. (ed.), Philadelphia. Work, Space, Family, and Group Experience in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1981), 128–73Google Scholar, and Pred, A., The Spatial Dynamics of U.S. Urban-Industrial Growth, 1800–1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), 207–13.Google Scholar See also Bater, J.H., St Petersburg. Industrialization and Change (London, 1976), 128–9, 280–95, 392–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁸ Garrioch, , Neighbourhood, esp. ch. 8.Google Scholar See also the 1807 incident recorded by the daughter of a Birmingham manufacturer, who was harassed by two boys while on her way home from school: she took refuge in a ‘reputable-looking shop’, but did not know the shopkeeper. This was not only a reflection of growing middle-class concern about social promiscuity, but also of the absence of a neighbourhood community which might oversee and regulate such behaviour: cited in Davidoff, L. and Hall, C., ‘The architecture of public and private life. English middle-class society in a provincial town, 1780–1850’Google Scholar, in Fraser, and Sutcliffe, (eds), The Pursuit of Urban History, 343.Google Scholar See also Boulton, , Neighbourhood, ch. 9Google Scholar, and Earle, , Making, esp. 240–50.Google Scholar

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⁹² Bruslons, J. Savary des, Dictionnaire universel de commerce, 3 vols (Paris, 1723–30)Google Scholar, article ‘Enseigne’. The entry is substantially the same in the later editions. Grand-Carteret, , L'Enseigne, 325–8Google Scholar; Larwood, and Hotten, , Signboards, 30Google Scholar; Todd, ‘French advertising’, esp. 533.

⁹³ Momentos, Historical and Classical, of a Tour through part of France, Switzerland, and Italy in the Years 1821 and 1822 (London, 1824)Google Scholar, quoted in Larwood, and Hotten, , Signboards, 35.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Quoted in Todd, ,‘French advertising’, 523.Google Scholar The translation is mine. Visitors to London in the early nineteenth century also commented on the signs: see Larwood, and Hotten, , Signboards, 31.Google Scholar

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⁹⁶ Caillot, A., Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des moeurs et usages des Français, 2 vols (Paris, 1827), vol. 2, 211–12, 213–20Google Scholar on other improvements to shops, and 220–23 on gas lighting.

⁹⁷ Dunand, D., Souvenirs GenevoisGoogle Scholar, quoted in Baudin, , L'Enseigne, 47–8.Google Scholar For further examples, McKendrick, , ‘Commercialization of fashion’, 78–80Google Scholar, and Davidoff, and Hall, , Family Fortunes, 366–7.Google Scholar

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