Entre économie légale et marchés parallèles Les femmes dans le petit commerce alimentaire lyonnais au tournant des xvii^e et xviii^e siècles

The place of women in pre-industrial economies has for a long time been viewed pessimistically, in terms of their exclusion from the world of corporations, and their relegation to the margins of the marketplace. In the last twenty years, however, this situation has been re-evaluated in a more positive light. Through a micro-analytical approach which looks at regulatory sources alongside practices, this article examines the omnipresence, legal or illegal, of women in the food industry in seventeenth-century Lyon.