Abstract
This article aims to provide the first description of the provosty of Paris as a writing centre, whose scripta can be considered a coherent sample of French as written in Paris in the second half of the thirteenth century. It offers a critical edition and analysis of the twenty earliest vernacular charters, drawn up by the provosty between 1260 and 1270, i.e. during the first decade after that chancery, thoroughly reformed by Louis IX, adopted the systematic use of French. The codicological description of all edited documents is followed by a meticulous linguistic and scriptological analysis, including graphematic (vowels and consonants), morphological and morphosyntactic, as well as lexical, phenomena. It reveals a "particolar combinazione" of defining features, with varying connections towards the West, North and East, as well as the "innovative thrust" that affected the scripta around 1265.