Healthscaping and Climate Volatility

This article examines how climate volatility affected urban governance in late medieval Paris (1364–1422), a period that coincided with the transition into the Little Ice Age. Drawing on narrative and administrative sources, the article argues that contemporaries experienced climatic instability primarily through material consequences: disrupted circulation, provisioning failures, and epidemic disease. These shocks destabilized the infrastructural foundations of urban life. The article shows that royal and municipal authorities responded through environmental governance, targeting all three infrastructural domains. These urban “healthscaping practices” treated infrastructure, water, markets, and public space as primary intervention sites under climatic stress. By integrating climate history with urban and political history, this study demonstrates that climate volatility shaped the timing, form, and priority of urban regulations in medieval Paris.