Guillot or Guiot of Paris was a late 13th or early 14th century French poet, author of the Le Dit des rues de Paris.
Life
All that we know of his life comes from biographical details in the Dit and its context. A man of letters, possibly a scribe, he was not a high-ranking poet. At the start of Dit he states he had edited several other texts: "Maint dit a fait de Roys, de Conte, Guillot de Paris en son conte". He demonstrates a poetic touch in his concise and color-filled descriptions of the streets of Paris. He lived in the reign of King Philip III of France, a time when the population of Paris was growing fast, requiring construction of a succession of enclosing walls ringing the city. In 1300 the population of Paris might have been 200 000 including the faubourgs, Gérard has estimated.
''Dit''
A minor work of great importance for its portrayal of the Paris of the period, Dit was first published in 1754 by, who discovered the manuscript in Dijon in 1754.The reference version was produced by in 1875 after carefully reviewing the text against the manuscript preserved in the Bibliotheque nationale de France, and enriching it with notes, a glossary and preface. A long poem of 554 verses of eight syllables in an AABB rhyme scheme, Dit enumerates the streets of Paris, approaching them through the neighborhoods which then made up the capital: to the north the Rive Droite, Outre Grand-Pont, also called the City, to the south the Left Bank, Outre-Petit-Pont, also known as the University, and on the island, Île de la Cité, the cradle of Paris.
Influence
Guillot offers tasty descriptions for each of the 310 streets of Paris of the time, small scenes in few words, used like brush strokes to show the sellers of wheat and cloth, the butchers, tailors, armourers and goldsmiths, and even the prostitutes and footpads. Some of these streets have disappeared but most of them have not, even if in 700 years some of them have changed in name or appearance, or part of their original span has been amputated. In the history of literature, the perambulations of Guillot, who takes his readers into the streets of the great Parisian labyrinth, foreshadow the genre of the Parisian urban stroll, which reached its :wikt:apogee|apogee in the 19th century in the writings of Gérard de Nerval such as Nuits d'octobre and Mémoires d'un Parisen, as well as in Charles Baudelaire's Fleurs du mal and Spleen de Paris.
Fabliaux et contes des poètes françois des XI, XII, XIII, XIV et XVe siècles, tirés des meilleurs auteurs, published by Barbazan. New edition, expanded and reviewed against the manuscripts, by M. Méon, Paris, Warée, 1808, 3 v., xxii + 465, xiv + 467, xxxii + 514 p. . Reissue: Geneva, Slatkine Reprints, 1976.
Jean La Tynna, Dictionnaire topographique, historique et étymologique des Rues de Paris, 2nd ed., 1816, p. lii.
J.-B. de Saint-Victor, Tableau historique et pittoresque de Paris, 1822, v. 1, p. 431.
Jean Béraud and Dufey, Dictionnaire historique de Paris, 1828, v. 2, p. 154.
, Le Nouveau Paris, 1860, p. 437.
L. Lazare, Publications administratives, 1862, v. 2, p. 28.
, Réimpression de l'Histoire de la ville de Paris, by Abbé Lebeuf, v.4, p. 7.
Les rues de Paris mises en vers à la fin du XIII siecle par Guillot, publiées d'après un manuscrit du XIV siècle, Paris, Baillieu, 1866, 44 p.
As a single work
Le dit des rues de Paris, by Guillot, with preface, notes and glossary, Edgar Mareuse editor, monograph in one volume, followed by a map of Paris under Philip IV of France, éditions Librairie générale, Paris, 1875.
Le Dit des Rues de Paris, by Guillot de Paris, Edgar Mareuse ed. and Catherine Nicolas, Les Éditions de Paris-Max Chaleil, 2012.
Studies
, Les incipit des poèmes français antérieurs au XVIe siècle. Répertoire bibliographique établi à l'aide de notes de M. Paul Meyer, Paris, Champion, 1917, vii + 444 p. . Dict.: DEAF LångforsInc. Reprinted: New York, Burt Franklin, 1970.
