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Archives en sacristie. Le trésor est-il un bâtiment d'archives ? Le cas du «Trésor des chartes» des rois de France (XIIIe-XIXe siècle)

2005; Volume: 10; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3406/lha.2005.1016

1960-5994

Yann Potin,

Diverse Cultural and Historical Studies

"Archives in the sacristy. The Treasure as a records building in the Middle Ages ? The case of the 'trésor des chartes' of the 'Sainte Chapelle' of Paris (Xlllth-XIXth century)", by Yann Potin The medieval legacy to contemporaries' records buildings seems to be limited to one word or one image : the "treasure" room" is frequently used as a metonymy of the entire depository or as the heart of the construction, for example in the French Public Record Office in Paris. If the expression appears to be a commonplace, it is nevertheless a witness of a very long spatial association between records and sacristy, between charter room and treasure room. The keeping of documents of the past in the outbuilding of a church or a chapel used to be the right and the main way of keeping records, especially for the institutions ; in France, only the alienation of the clerical property during the French Revolution broke off this practice. Is this very widespread tradition of keeping records can be explained with only security reasons ? Is the integration of records in the larger space of the treasure means that archives had not any form of architectural independence before the eighteenth century ? This contribution try to answer through the specific but much imitated case of the building of "trésor des chartes" - the other name for the sacristy of the "Sainte Chapelle du Palais of Paris" — both founded in the middle of the eighteenth century. Inheriting of a long previous ecclesiastical tradition of settlement, the main record office of the kings managed to stay inside the same building until 1783, before becoming the centre of the depositories of the "hotel Soubise" since 1808.