House names, shop signs and social organization in Western European cities, 1500–1900

Abstract

The houses in early modern European cities almost all had names and signs. These are usually taken to be an early form of advertising, or else a way of finding one's way around the city in times before street names and numbering. This article argues that their primary purpose was to mark the individual, family or ethnic identity of the house owner or tenant. During the eighteenth century the names and signs changed in character, and by the mid-nineteenth century they had almost disappeared from city centres, primarily as a result of changes in individual and family identity among the urban middle classes, and of the transformation of neighbourhood communities under the pressure of urban economic and social integration. The evolution of house names and shop signs therefore illustrates the changing relationship between the city's residents and the urban environment.

The urban inn: gathering space, hierarchy and material culture in the eighteenth-century British town

“…49 Projecting, hanging shop and trade signs were endemic in the eighteenth century, cluttering the space above Britain's streets. 50 (Figure 8). 51 Peter Borsay suggests that the architectural presence of these relatively grand buildings was intended as a statement of the wealth and success of the innkeeper.…”

“…49 Projecting, hanging shop and trade signs were endemic in the eighteenth century, cluttering the space above Britain's streets. 50 Inns, however, excelled in the craft of spatial projection, extending beyond the common hanging-board sign to street-spanning beam-signs as at The George in Stamford, Lincolnshire; elaborate ironwork as at The Bell, Stilton, or The Red Lion, Salisbury; or object-signs such as the crown outside The Crown, Guildford (now a NatWest bank), or the eponymous Golden Fleece, Thirsk, Yorkshire (Figure 7). Until the mid-nineteenth century, a statue of a bear eating a bunch of grapes stood on a doublecolumn in the centre of Devizes Market Place to advertise The Bear.…”

Moving Between Addresses

“…Address in this respect represents social, economic, and political power relations that are usually expressed in the arrangement and order of public spaces in such a way that memories, histories, and traditions of the hegemon are the dominant expressions in the names of streets and central places (Azaryahu 1996;Azaryahu and Kook 2002). In other research, address is perceived as a key element in modern urban spaces as an efficient way-finding system of symbols, pervasive and deceptively simple (Alderman 2002;Azaryahu 1996;Garrioch 1994;Thale 2007); as a city engineering technique for increasing efficiency (Pomerantz 1965); and as the intersection of hegemonic ideological structures with spatial practices of everyday life (Peterson 2003). The suggested critical perspective also challenges the view of addresses as the only important elements of the urban symbolic landscape (Cosgrove 1996).…”

Un prix sans aménité

“…S. hanley, 1989. an, z 1j 1126, 26 novembre 1784 ; d. Garrioch, 1994. 79. h. Monin, 1889, p. 570-571. 80.…”