In the 10th century

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

was a provincial cathedral city of little political or economic significance, but under the kings of the

Capetian The Capetian dynasty (; french: Capétiens), also known as the House of France, is a dynasty of Frankish origin, and a branch of the Robertians. It is among the largest and oldest royal houses in Europe and the world, and consists of Hugh Cap ...

dynasty who ruled France between 987 and 1328, it developed into an important commercial and religious center and the seat of the royal administration of the country. The

Île de la Cité Île de la Cité (; English: City Island) is an island in the river Seine in the center of Paris. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of the Roman governor. In 508, Clovis I, the first King of the Franks, established his palace ...

became the site of the royal palace and the new cathedral of Notre-Dame, begun in 1163. The

Left Bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography, as follows. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terra ...

was occupied by important monasteries, including the

Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conc ...

and the

Abbey of St Genevieve The Abbey of Saint Genevieve (French: ''Abbaye Sainte-Geneviève'') was a monastery in Paris. Reportedly built by Clovis, King of the Franks in 502, it became a centre of religious scholarship in the Middle Ages. It was suppressed at the time of t ...

. In the late 1100s, the collection of colleges on the left bank became one of the leading universities in Europe. The

Right Bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography, as follows. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terra ...

, where the ports, central markets, artisans and merchants were located, became the commercial center of the city, and the merchants assumed an important role in running the city. Paris became a center for the creation of

illuminated manuscripts An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, th ...

and the birthplace of

Gothic architecture Gothic architecture (or pointed architecture) is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It ...

. Despite civil wars, the plague, and foreign occupation, Paris became the most populous city in the

Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.

during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

Geography

The location of Paris was an important factor in its growth and strategic importance during the Middle Ages. Due to its position at the confluence of the

Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributaries ...

and the rivers

Oise Oise ( ; ; pcd, Oése) is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise. Inhabitants of the department are called ''Oisiens'' () or ''Isariens'', after the Latin name for the river, Isara. It had a population of 829,4 ...

Marne Marne can refer to: Places France *Marne (river), a tributary of the Seine *Marne (department), a département in northeastern France named after the river * La Marne, a commune in western France *Marne, a legislative constituency (France) Nether ...

and Yerres, the city was abundantly supplied with food from the surrounding region, which was rich in grain fields and vineyards. The rivers also offered access for trading by boat with other cities in France and locations as far away as

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

and Germany. The Seine, without its stone embankments, was about twice as wide as it is today, and a tributary, the river Bièvre, entered the Seine about where the Jardin des Plantes is today. The largest island in the river, the ''

'' ("Island of the City"), was the easiest place to build bridges across the Seine; it became the crossing point on the important north-south trade route between

Orléans Orléans (;"Orleans"
(US) and Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture ...

. The island was also the easiest place to defend; it gave the Parisians a sanctuary when the city was attacked by the

Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...

in the 5th century and

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

in the

9th century The 9th century was a period from 801 ( DCCCI) through 900 ( CM) in accordance with the Julian calendar. The Carolingian Renaissance and the Viking raids occurred within this period. In the Middle East, the House of Wisdom was founded in Abbas ...

. The Roman prefects had built their residences on the west end of the island; the first royal palace was built on the same site in the

early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...

. The first cathedral and the residence of the bishop were built on the east end of the island at about the same time. The Romans had built their city on the

, because it was of higher elevation and less prone to flood; the forum was located on a hill about high, later called the

Montagne Sainte-Geneviève The Montagne Sainte-Geneviève is a hill overlooking the left bank of the Seine in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. It was known to the ancient Romans as .Hilaire Belloc, ''Paris (Methuen & Company, 1900)'' Retrieved June 14, 2016 Atop the Monta ...

after the patron saint of the city. In the early Middle Ages, the hill became the site of two important monasteries, the Abbey of Saint-Victor and the

, while another large and prosperous monastery, the

, was built in the fields along the Seine farther west. In the Middle Ages, the monasteries attracted thousands of scholars and students who formed colleges that became the

University of Paris The University of Paris (french: link=no, Université de Paris), metonymically known as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, active from 1150 to 1970, with the exception between 1793 and 1806 under the French Revolution. ...

in the beginning of the

13th century The 13th century was the century which lasted from January 1, 1201 ( MCCI) through December 31, 1300 ( MCCC) in accordance with the Julian calendar. The Mongol Empire was founded by Genghis Khan, which stretched from Eastern Asia to Eastern Eur ...

. The

was swampy, but it was also the best place for landing boats. The gravel beach in which the Hôtel de Ville stands today became the port and the commercial center of the city, where the central market was located. The trade route from Orléans to Flanders passed between two large buttes on the Right Bank; the same route is followed today by the trains to

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

and Amsterdam. The Romans probably built a temple to Mercury on the highest point at , which they called "Mount Mercury". It was the site of the martyrdom of Saint Denis and two other missionaries and thereafter was known as the "Mountain of Martyrs" or "

Montmartre Montmartre ( , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank. The historic district established by the City of Paris in 1995 is bordered by Rue Ca ...

". During the Middle Ages, it lay outside the city walls, and was the site of a large convent and a pilgrimage church. During the course of the Middle Ages, the swampy land on the Right Bank was filled in and most of the city's growth took place there. This geographic distribution, with the administration and the courts on the island, the merchants on the Right Bank, and the University on the Left Bank, remained largely the same throughout the history of the city down to the present day.

Population

Atlas des anciens plans de Paris - Paris en 1380 - David Rumsey

There are no reliable figures for the population of Paris from before 1328, when an official count was made of the number of parishes in the kingdom of France and the number of ''feux'', or households, in each parish. Paris was reported to contain thirty-five parishes and 61,098 households: estimating three and a half people per household, the population of the city would have been at least two hundred thousand persons. Other historians, using the same data, have estimated the population at between 220,000 and 270,000. The

bubonic plague Bubonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by the plague bacterium (''Yersinia pestis''). One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and vomiting, as well ...

struck Paris for the first time in 1348 and returned frequently. Due to the plague and the outbreak of the

Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War The Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War was a conflict between two cadet branches of the French royal family – the House of Orléans (Armagnac faction) and the House of Burgundy ( Burgundian faction) from 1407 to 1435. It began during a lull in the ...

in 1407, the population fell to about one hundred thousand by 1422. Following the end of the wars, the population increased quickly; by 1500, the population had reached about 150,000. In the Middle Ages, Paris was already attracting immigrants from the

provinces of France The Kingdom of France was organised into provinces until the National Constituent Assembly adopted a more uniform division into departments (''départements'') and districts in late 1789. The provinces continued to exist administratively until 2 ...

and other countries of Europe. A study of the names in the ''Livres des Tailles'', or parish records, between 1292 and 1313 showed 155 persons listed as ''L’Anglois'' (an Englishman); 144 called ''Le Breton'' (a Breton), plus forty-seven from

Burgundy Burgundy (; french: link=no, Bourgogne ) is a historical territory and former Regions of France, administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Duke of Burgundy, Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11 ...

, forty-four from

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

, forty-two from

Picardy Picardy (; Picard and french: Picardie, , ) is a historical territory and a former administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region of Hauts-de-France. It is located in the northern part of France. Hi ...

, thirty four from Flanders, and twenty-eight from

Lorraine Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of G ...

. In addition, there were many more from the cities and towns of the Paris basin.

The city walls

The borders of Paris were defined in the Middle Ages by a series of walls. During the

Merovingian The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gauli ...

era of Frankish rule (481–751 AD), the Île de a Cité had ramparts, and some of the monasteries and churches were protected by wooden stockades walls, but the residents of the Left and Right Banks were largely undefended. When

and other invaders attacked, the residents of Paris took sanctuary on the island. The first city wall was built on the Right Bank in the 11th century; it was about 1,700 meters long and protected an area of the Right Bank from about the modern Hôtel de Ville to the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central ...

. It had about thirty towers and four to six gates. The much smaller population of the Left Bank was unprotected. Plan de Paris vers 1550 color

By 1180, the city had grown to 200 hectares. To give all Parisians a sense of security, King

Philip II Philip II may refer to: * Philip II of Macedon (382–336 BC) * Philip II (emperor) (238–249), Roman emperor * Philip II, Prince of Taranto (1329–1374) * Philip II, Duke of Burgundy (1342–1404) * Philip II, Duke of Savoy (1438-1497) * Philip ...

decided to build a new wall entirely around the city. Work began between 1190 and 1208 on the Right Bank and 1209 and 1220 on the Left Bank. The new wall was 5,400 meters long (2,800 on the Right Bank and 2,600 on the Left Bank), with ten gates and seventy-five towers, and surrounded about 273 hectares, including much land that was still gardens and pastures. Portions of this wall can still be seen in the

Le Marais The Marais (Le Marais ; "the marsh") is a historic district in Paris, France. Having once been an aristocratic district, it is home to many buildings of historic and architectural importance. It spreads across parts of the 3rd and 4th arr ...

district and other neighborhoods today. The city continued to grow rapidly, particularly on the Right Bank to fill in the vacant tracts within the new wall and spill beyond it. Between 1358 and 1371,

Charles V Charles V may refer to: * Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) * Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain * Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise * Charles V, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690) * Infan ...

built another new wall 4,900 meters long to enclose 439 hectares. Most of this wall was on the Right Bank; on the slower-growing Left Bank, the king simply repaired the old wall of Philip II. This new wall included a powerful new fortress at the eastern edge of the city at the

Porte Saint-Antoine The Porte Saint-Antoine was one of the gates of Paris. There were two gates named the Porte Saint-Antoine, both now demolished, of which the best known was that guarded by the Bastille, on the site now occupied by the start of Rue de la Bastille i ...

called the

Bastille The Bastille (, ) was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was stor ...

. These walls were modified to make them more resistant to a new strategic weapon of the Middle Ages, the

cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during ...

, and no new walls were built until the 16th century. As the city pressed against the city walls, it also grew vertically. The streets were very narrow, averaging only four meters wide. The average house in the 14th century had a ground floor, two floors of residential space, and another smaller residential space under the roof on the third floor, but there were also a large number of houses with four floors on the Rue Saint-Denis, the

Rue Saint-Honoré The rue Saint-Honoré is a street in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. It is named after the collegial situated in ancient times within the cloisters of Saint-Honoré. The street, on which are located a number of museums and upscale bo ...

and other streets, and a five-story house is recorded on the Rue des Poulies. Given that the area of Paris within the city walls in 1328 was 439 hectares, and the population was two hundred thousand, many of those counted probably lived outside the city walls. It remained very high in the heart of the city, except during times of war and the plague, until the reconstruction by

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

and Haussmann in the mid-19th century.

Royal Palaces

The Palais de la Cité

The Roman governors of

Lutetia The Gallo-Roman town of ''Lutetia'' (''Lutetia Parisiorum'' in Latin, in French ''Lutèce'') was the predecessor of the modern-day city of Paris. It was founded in about the middle of the 3rd century BCE by the Parisii, a Gallic tribe. Tra ...

(=Lutèce), the ancient predecessor of modern Paris, maintained their residence on the western end of the

, where the Palais de Justice stands today. A castle was built on the same site in the early Middle Ages. After

Hugh Capet Hugh Capet (; french: Hugues Capet ; c. 939 – 14 October 996) was the King of the Franks from 987 to 996. He is the founder and first king from the House of Capet. The son of the powerful duke Hugh the Great and his wife Hedwige of Saxony, h ...

was elected

King of the French The precise style of French sovereigns varied over the years. Currently, there is no French sovereign; three distinct traditions (the Legitimist, the Orleanist, and the Bonapartist) exist, each claiming different forms of title. The three styles ...

on 3 July 987, he resided in this castle, but he and the other Capetian kings spent little time in the city, and had other royal residences in

Vincennes Vincennes (, ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is next to but does not include the Château de Vincennes and Bois de Vincennes, which are attached ...

, Compiegne and

Orléans Orléans (;"Orleans"
(US) and Robert the Pious, who ruled from 996 to 1031, stayed in Paris more often than his predecessors. He rebuilt the old castle, making it a walled rectangle 110 by 135 meters in size, with numerous towers and massive central tower, or ''

donjon A keep (from the Middle English ''kype'') is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in ca ...

'', and added a chapel named for

Saint Nicholas Saint Nicholas of Myra, ; la, Sanctus Nicolaus (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343), also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greeks, Greek descent from the maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor (; modern-da ...

. However, it was not until the 12th century and the reigns of Louis VI (1108–1137) and

Louis VII of France Louis VII (1120 – 18 September 1180), called the Younger, or the Young (french: link=no, le Jeune), was King of the Franks from 1137 to 1180. He was the son and successor of King Louis VI (hence the epithet "the Young") and married Duchess ...

(1137–1180) that Paris became the principal residence of the kings, and the term

Palais de la Cité The Palais de la Cité (), located on the Île de la Cité in the Seine River in the centre of Paris, is a major historic building that was the residence of the Kings of France from the sixth century until the 14th century, and has been the center ...

(or "Royal Palace") was commonly used. Philip II (1180–1223) placed the royal archives, the treasury and courts within the royal palace, and thereafter the city functioned, except for brief periods, as the capital of the kingdom of France. Louvre - Les Très Riches Heures

Louis IX Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly known as Saint Louis or Louis the Saint, was King of France from 1226 to 1270, and the most illustrious of the Direct Capetians. He was crowned in Reims at the age of 12, following the ...

, or Saint Louis, the grandson of Philip II, gave the palace a new symbol that combined royal and religious symbolism. Between 1242 and 1248, on the site of the old chapel, he built the

Sainte-Chapelle The Sainte-Chapelle (; en, Holy Chapel) is a royal chapel in the Gothic style, within the medieval Palais de la Cité, the residence of the Kings of France until the 14th century, on the Île de la Cité in the River Seine in Paris, France. C ...

shortly before he departed for the Seventh Crusade. It housed the sacred relics Louis had acquired, which were believed to be the crown of thorns and wood from the cross of the

Crucifixion of Christ The crucifixion and death of Jesus occurred in 1st-century Judea, most likely in AD 30 or AD 33. It is described in the four canonical gospels, referred to in the New Testament epistles, attested to by other ancient sources, and consider ...

, purchased in 1238 from the governor of Constantinople. These symbols allowed Louis to present himself not just as the king of France, but as the leader of the

Christian world Christendom historically refers to the Christian states, Christian-majority countries and the countries in which Christianity dominates, prevails,SeMerriam-Webster.com : dictionary, "Christendom"/ref> or is culturally or historically intertwin ...

. The chapel had two levels, the lower level for ordinary servants of the king, and the upper level for the king and royal family. Only the king was allowed to touch the crown of thorns, which he took out each year on

Good Friday Good Friday is a Christian holiday commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Calvary. It is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum. It is also known as Holy Friday, Great Friday, Great and Holy Friday (also Holy ...

. King Philip IV (1285–1314) reconstructed the royal residence on the Île de la Cité, transforming it from a fortress into a palace. Two of the great ceremonial halls still remain within the structure of the Palais de Justice. The palace complex included the residence of the king, with a private chapel, or oratory; a building for the law courts; a large hall for ceremonies; and a ''donjon'', or tower, which was still standing in the mid-19th century. The palace also had a private walled garden at the end of the island and a private dock, from which the king could travel by boat to his other residences, the Louvre fortress on the Right Bank and the

Tour de Nesle The Tour de Nesle () was one of the four large guard towers on the old city wall of Paris, constructed at the beginning of the 13th century by Philip II of France and demolished in 1665. The tower was situated on the left (south) bank of the S ...

on the Left Bank. In the later Middle Ages, the Palais de le Cité was the financial and judicial center of the kingdom; the home of the courts of justice and the

Parlement A ''parlement'' (), under the French Ancien Régime, was a provincial appellate court of the Kingdom of France. In 1789, France had 13 parlements, the oldest and most important of which was the Parlement of Paris. While both the modern Fren ...

de Paris, a high court composed of nobles. The royal offices took their names from the different chambers, or rooms, of the palace; the Chambre des Comptes (chamber of the accounts), was the treasury of the kingdom, and the courts were divided between the ''Chambre civile'' and the ''Chambre criminelle''. The tangible symbol of royal power was the large black marble table in the hall of the king, which was used for royal banquets, and also for ceremonial events, the taking of oaths and sessions of the military high courts. Once Paris became the permanent seat of the government, the number of officials began to grow. This created a demand for educated lawyers, clerks and administrators. This need was met by the incorporation of the many small colleges on the Left Bank into the

. Also, since the king had a permanent residence in Paris, the members of the nobility followed his example and built their own palatial town houses. The presence of the nobles in Paris created a large market for luxury goods, such as furs, silks, armor and weapons, causing the merchants of the Right Bank to thrive. It also created a need for money-lenders, some of whom became the richest individuals in Paris.

The Louvre and the Hotel Royal of Saint-Pol

As the palace became the center of administration and justice in France, the kings began to spend less and less time there. Between 1190 and 1202, Philip II built the massive fortress of the Louvre, designed to protect the Right Bank of the Seine against an English attack from Normandy. The fortress was a great rectangle, 72 by 78 meters, surrounded by four towers and a moat. In the center was a circular tower thirty meters high. It was the anchor on the Right Bank of the new wall he built around the city. Philip began to use the new castle for recreation and also for ceremonial functions; the vassals of the king took their oath of loyalty at the Louvre rather than the city palace. Le Bal des Ardents

Between 1361 and 1364,

, distrustful of the turbulent Parisians and offended by the foul air and smells of the medieval city, decided to move his residence permanently from the Île de la Cité to a safer and healthier location. He built a new residential complex in the Saint-Antoine quarter between the wall built by Philip II and the Bastille, the most powerful fortress of the new wall that he was building around the city. The new residence, called the

Hôtel Saint-Pol The Hôtel Saint-Pol was a royal residence begun in 1360 by Charles V of France on the ruins of a building constructed by Louis IX. It was used by Charles V and Charles VI. Located on the Right Bank, to the northwest of the Quartier de l'Arsenal ...

, covered a large area between the Rue Saint Antoine and the Seine and the Rue Saint-Paul and Rue du Petit-Musc. It was the site of the notorious ''

Bal des Ardents The ''Bal des Ardents'' (Ball of the Burning Men), also called ''Bal des Sauvages'' (Ball of the Wild Men), was a masquerade ballSources vary whether the event was a masquerade or a masque. held on 28 January 1393 in Paris at which Charles ...

'' in 1393, when the elaborate costumes of four dancers, all members of the

nobility Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteris ...

, caught fire and burned them to death, while Charles VI, one of the dancers, barely escaped. Charles VII abandoned it when he fled Paris in 1418. By 1519, the buildings were in ruins and torn down soon afterwards. The church of

Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis The Église Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis is a church on rue Saint-Antoine in the Marais quarter of Paris. The present building was constructed from 1627 to 1641 by the Jesuit architects Étienne Martellange and François Derand, on the orders of Lou ...

was built on the site. Further east, outside the city walls, in the royal forest, Charles V rebuilt the

Château de Vincennes The Château de Vincennes () is a former fortress and royal residence next to the town of Vincennes, on the eastern edge of Paris, alongside the Bois de Vincennes. It was largely built between 1361 and 1369, and was a preferred residence, after ...

, which became one of his principal residences. Within its walls and towers, he re-created the Palais de la Cité, complete with a full-size replica of the royal

. Rulers from

Louis XI Louis XI (3 July 1423 – 30 August 1483), called "Louis the Prudent" (french: le Prudent), was King of France from 1461 to 1483. He succeeded his father, Charles VII. Louis entered into open rebellion against his father in a short-lived revo ...

to Francis I preferred to reside either at Vincennes or in the

Châteaux of the Loire Valley The châteaux of the Loire Valley (french: châteaux de la Loire) are part of the architectural heritage of the historic towns of Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Montsoreau, Orléans, Saumur, and Tours along the river Loire in France. They illus ...

The Cathedral and the Clergy

While the seat of royal power during the Middle Ages was on the west end of the Île de la Cité, the center of religious authority was at the east end of the island, in the Cathedral of

Notre-Dame de Paris Notre-Dame de Paris (; meaning "Our Lady of Paris"), referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité (an island in the Seine River), in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. The cathedral, dedicated to the ...

, the cloisters of Notre-Dame, the school of the Cathedral, and the residence of the Bishop of Paris, next to the cathedral. The Catholic Church played a prominent role in the city throughout the Middle Ages; it owned a large part of the land and wealth, was the creator of the University of Paris and was closely linked to the king and the government. Clerics also made up a significant part of the population; in 1300, the Bishop of Paris was assisted by 51 ''chanoines'' ( canons), and each of the thirty-three parish churches had its own ''curé'' (

curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' (''cura'') ''of souls'' of a parish. In this sense, "curate" means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy w ...

vicar A vicar (; Latin: ''vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pref ...

, and

chaplains A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secular institution (such as a hospital, prison, military unit, intelligence ...

. There were thousands of monks and nuns in the eighty-eight convents and monasteries, numerous

beguines The Beguines () and the Beghards () were Christian lay religious orders that were active in Western Europe, particularly in the Low Countries, in the 13th–16th centuries. Their members lived in semi-monastic communities but did not take form ...

and religious orders, and there were about three thousand students who had taken religious orders and were considered clerics. Altogether, there were about 20,000 members of religious orders in the city, or about ten percent of the population, in the year 1300.

The Cathedral of Notre Dame

According to tradition, Paris was converted to Christianity in about 250 AD by Saint Denis, a bishop sent to Christianize

Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during R ...

Pope Fabian Pope Fabian ( la, Fabianus) was the bishop of Rome from 10 January 236 until his death on 20 January 250, succeeding Anterus. A dove is said to have descended on his head to mark him as the Holy Spirit's unexpected choice to become the next pop ...

. He was martyred and buried at Saint-Denis, where a basilica was founded to mark his grave. The first Christian church is believed to have been built near where Notre Dame Cathedral is today, on the site a Roman temple to

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth th ...

; stones from the Roman temple were found beneath the choir of Notre Dame when the choir was renovated in 1711 and are now on display in the Cluny Museum. This was the Cathedral of Saint Etienne, Paris, dedicated in 375 to Saint Étienne (

Saint Stephen Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ''Stéphanos'', meaning "wreath, crown" and by extension "reward, honor, renown, fame", often given as a title rather than as a name; c. 5 – c. 34 AD) is traditionally venerated as the protomartyr or first ...

) and located in front of where the Cathedral is today. Saint

Genevieve Genevieve (french: link=no, Sainte Geneviève; la, Sancta Genovefa, Genoveva; 419/422 AD – 502/512 AD) is the patroness saint of Paris in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Her feast is on 3 January. Genevieve was born in Nanterre a ...

was said to have gathered the faithful inside the cathedral when the city was threatened by Germanic invaders. In 528, King

Childebert I Childebert I (c. 496 – 13 December 558) was a Frankish King of the Merovingian dynasty, as third of the four sons of Clovis I who shared the kingdom of the Franks upon their father's death in 511. He was one of the sons of Saint Cl ...

constructed a new cathedral, called Notre-Dame, next to the church of Saint-Étienne. Twelve stones from the seats of the ancient Roman amphitheater were found in the foundations of the church. A baptistry, called the Church of St. Jean-le-Rond, served both the early Saint-Etienne cathedral and Notre-Dame-de-Paris until its own demolition in the 17th century. The modern cathedral is the work of

Maurice de Sully Maurice de Sully (died 11 September 1196) was Bishop of Paris from 1160 until his retirement in 1196. He was responsible for the construction of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Biography He was born to poor parents at Sully-sur-Loire (Soliacum), nea ...

, the Bishop of Paris, who had originally come from a poor family in the Loire Valley to study at the school of the cathedral. He became the bishop in 1160, and it was he who baptized Philip II, the son of King Louis IX, in 1163. In the same year, the first stone of the cathedral was laid by

Pope Alexander III Pope Alexander III (c. 1100/1105 – 30 August 1181), born Roland ( it, Rolando), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 7 September 1159 until his death in 1181. A native of Siena, Alexander became pope after a co ...

. The altar was consecrated in 1182. Sully guided the work on the church until his death in 1196, following the new style innovated by Abbot

Suger Suger (; la, Sugerius; 1081 – 13 January 1151) was a French abbot, statesman, and historian. He once lived at the court of Pope Calixtus II in Maguelonne, France. He later became abbot of St-Denis, and became a close confidant to King Lo ...

at the nearby

Basilica of Saint-Denis The Basilica of Saint-Denis (french: Basilique royale de Saint-Denis, links=no, now formally known as the ) is a large former medieval abbey church and present cathedral in the commune of Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris. The building ...

. The façade was built between 1200 and 1225, and the two towers were built between 1225 and 1250. The church was not finished until the reign of Philip IV in 1330, almost 170 years after it was begun. It was the largest monument in Paris, 125 meters long, with towers 63 meters high, and seats for 1300 worshippers.

The School of Notre Dame

The

cloister A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a ...

of Notre-Dame occupied the whole area of the island to the north of the cathedral; it was not a cloister in the traditional sense, but a small city enclosed by a wall, where the clerical community of Notre Dame lived and worked. It also included a large garden on the eastern end of the island. In the 11th century, the first school in Paris was established there, teaching young boys reading, writing, arithmetic, the catechism, and singing. In the early 12th century, schools teaching these basic subjects were spread around the city, while the School of Notre Dame concentrated on higher education; grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, astrology, and music. The School of Notre Dame became famous throughout Europe; it produced seven

pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

s and twenty-nine

cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to: Animals * Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **'' Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae **'' Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, t ...

s; the future

Louis VII Louis VII (1120 – 18 September 1180), called the Younger, or the Young (french: link=no, le Jeune), was King of the Franks from 1137 to 1180. He was the son and successor of King Louis VI (hence the epithet "the Young") and married Duchess ...

studied there, as did the nephews of

. The teachers included Pierre Abelard, Maurice de Sully, Pierre Lombard,

Saint Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wit ...

, and

Saint Bonaventure Bonaventure ( ; it, Bonaventura ; la, Bonaventura de Balneoregio; 1221 – 15 July 1274), born Giovanni di Fidanza, was an Italian Catholic Franciscan, bishop, cardinal, scholastic theologian and philosopher. The seventh Minister Ge ...

. It was the dominant school in Paris until the late 12th century, when it began to be eclipsed by the new colleges established around the monasteries on the Left bank, which were not under the authority of the Bishop of Paris, but directly under the pope. In this way, the School of Notre Dame was the ancestor of the University of Paris, when it was chartered in about 1200.

The Monasteries

The first

monasteries A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which m ...

appeared in Paris during the Merovingian Dynasty (481–731 AD) and were mostly located around the Mountain of Sainte-Geneviève on the Left Bank, where the old Roman city of

was situated. The Abbey of Saint Laurent was founded in the first half of the 6th century; in the early 7th century, the Basilica of the Saints-Apôtres (the Holy Apostles), the future Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève, was established near the site of the old Roman forum on the Left Bank. Farther west on the Left Bank, Saint

Germain of Paris Germain ( la, Germanus; 496 – 28 May 576) was the bishop of Paris and is venerated as a saint in both the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. According to an early biography, he was known as Germain d'Autun, rendered in modern t ...

founded the Abbey of Sainte-Croix and Saint Vincent, which after his death became the

. The abbeys were independent of the Bishop of Paris; they were governed by the pope and usually had direct connections with the king. They owned a very large part of the land of Paris, particularly on the Left Bank, and played a large part in its economic life; they produced food and wine and operated the largest commercial fairs. They also played a central role in cultural life by running all the schools and colleges and by producing works of art, especially

illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...

The Bishops of Paris

During most of the Middle Ages, the Bishops of Paris and the Abbots of Saint-Denis were closely allied with the royal government.

, the Abbot of Saint Denis, was both a pioneer in church architecture and a royal advisor. When

departed for the

Second Crusade The Second Crusade (1145–1149) was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa in 1144 to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Cru ...

, he entrusted Suger with the treasury of the kingdom. The pope did not appreciate the close ties between the kings of France and the bishops of Paris; although Paris was the capital and largest city of France, the bishop was under the authority of the archbishop of

Sens Sens () is a commune in the Yonne department in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in north-central France, 120 km from Paris. Sens is a sub-prefecture and the second city of the department, the sixth in the region. It is crossed by the Yonne and ...

, a much smaller city. In 1377, Charles VII asked

Pope Gregory XI Pope Gregory XI ( la, Gregorius, born Pierre Roger de Beaufort; c. 1329 – 27 March 1378) was head of the Catholic Church from 30 December 1370 to his death in March 1378. He was the seventh and last Avignon pope and the most recent French pop ...

to raise Paris to the status of an

archdiocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

, but the pope refused. Paris did not become an archdiocese until the reign of Louis XIV. In the later Middle Ages, important positions in the church were given more and more often to members of the aristocracy of wealthy families who had provided services to the Court; abbots were assured of a large income. One of the greatest benefits was to receive one of the twenty-seven houses that surrounded the cloister of Notre Dame, located northeast of the cathedral at the end of the Île de la Cité. The position of the curate of a parish in Paris was also often given to those who had done favors for the king, rather than those who had demonstrated religious devotion.

Religious Orders and the Templars

In the 13th century, new religious orders arrived in Paris with the mission of fighting heresies that had appeared inside and outside the church. The

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

was the first to arrive in 1217, charged with teaching orthodox church doctrine both within the university and to the Parisians. They established their headquarters on the Rue Saint-Jacques in 1218. The

Franciscan Order , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

came in 1217–1219 and established chapters at Saint Denis, on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, and, with the support of King Louis IX, at Saint-Germain des Prés. Another important religious order arrived in Paris in the mid-12th century: the

Knights Templar , colors = White mantle with a red cross , colors_label = Attire , march = , mascot = Two knights riding a single horse , equipment ...

, who established their headquarters at the Old Temple on the Right Bank next to the Seine near the churches of Saint-Gervais and Saint-Jean-en-Grève. In the 13th century, they built a fortress with a high tower on what is now the Place du Temple. The Knights Templar owned a considerable amount of land in the city and were the guardians of the treasury for King

, Philip III, and Philip IV at the beginning of his reign. Philip IV was resentful at the power of the Templars and had their leaders arrested in 1307, then condemned and burned. All the belongings of the Templars were seized and handed over to another military order, the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headqu ...

, which was more closely under royal control. In the late Middle Ages, the ''Confrèries'' ( Confraternities) played an important role. They were societies of wealthy merchants in each parish who contributed to the church and its activities. The most prestigious was the Grande Confrérie de Notre-Dame, which had its own chapel on the Île-de-Cité. It had an enormous treasury, which was governed during one period by

Étienne Marcel Étienne Marcel (between 1302 and 131031 July 1358) was provost of the merchants of Paris under King John II of France, called John the Good (Jean le Bon). He distinguished himself in the defence of the small craftsmen and guildsmen who made u ...

, the provost of the merchants and the first mayor of Paris. By the end of the 15th century, the prestige of the church in Paris was in decline, due largely to financial scandals and corruption. This set the stage for the arrival of

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

and the French Wars of Religion that followed the Middle Ages.

The University of Paris

Master and scholars - 1464 - L'image du Monde

During the 12th century, the teachers of the School of Notre Dame established Paris as one of the leading centers of scholarship in Europe. As the century advanced, the intellectual center moved from Notre Dame to the Left Bank, where the monasteries, which were independent of the Bishop of Paris, began to establish their own schools. One of the most important new schools was established on the left bank at the Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève; its teachers included the scholar Pierre Abelard (1079–1142), who taught five thousand students. Abelard was forced to leave the university because of the scandal caused by his romance with the nun

Héloïse Héloïse (; c. 1100–01? – 16 May 1163–64?), variously Héloïse d' ArgenteuilCharrier, Charlotte. Heloise Dans L'histoire Et Dans la Legende. Librairie Ancienne Honore Champion Quai Malaquais, VI, Paris, 1933 or Héloïse du Paraclet, w ...

. The schools trained not only clerics for the church, but also clerks who could read and write for the growing administration of the kingdom of France. Abelard and Heloise

By the end of the 12th century the neighborhood around the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève was crowded with students who frequently came into conflict with the neighbors and the authorities of the city. One particular battle in 1200 between students and the townspeople in a tavern left five persons dead; King Philip II was called in to define the rights and legal status of students formally. Thereafter, the students and teachers were gradually organized into a corporation that was officially recognized in 1215 as a university by

Pope Innocent III Pope Innocent III ( la, Innocentius III; 1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216), born Lotario dei Conti di Segni (anglicized as Lothar of Segni), was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 to his death in 16 ...

, who had studied there. In the 13th century, there were between two and three thousand students living in the Left Bank, which became known as the

Latin Quarter The Latin Quarter of Paris (french: Quartier latin, ) is an area in the 5th and the 6th arrondissements of Paris. It is situated on the left bank of the Seine, around the Sorbonne. Known for its student life, lively atmosphere, and bistros ...

, because Latin was the language of instruction at the university. The number grew to about four thousand in the 14th century. The poorer students lived in colleges (''Collegia pauperum magistrorum'') that functioned as dormitories where they were lodged and fed. In 1257, the chaplain of Louis IX,

Robert de Sorbon Robert de Sorbon (; 9 October 1201 – 15 August 1274) was a French theologian, the chaplain of Louis IX of France, and founder of the Sorbonne college in Paris. Biography Born into a poor family in Sorbon, in what is now the Ardennes ''dép ...

, opened the most famous college of the university, which was later named after him: the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

.From the 13th to the 15th century, the University of Paris was the most important school of catholic theology in Western Europe, whose teachers included

Roger Bacon Roger Bacon (; la, Rogerus or ', also '' Rogerus''; ), also known by the scholastic accolade ''Doctor Mirabilis'', was a medieval English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empi ...

from England, Saint

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known w ...

from Italy, and Saint

Bonaventure Bonaventure ( ; it, Bonaventura ; la, Bonaventura de Balneoregio; 1221 – 15 July 1274), born Giovanni di Fidanza, was an Italian Catholic Franciscan, bishop, cardinal, scholastic theologian and philosopher. The seventh Minister Ge ...

from Germany. The University of Paris was originally organized into four faculties:

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

canon law Canon law (from grc, κανών, , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is th ...

, medicine, and arts and letters. The arts and letters students were the most numerous; their courses included grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Their course of study led first to a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six y ...

, then a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

, which allowed them to teach. Students began at the age of fourteen and studied at the faculty of arts until they were twenty. The completion of a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

in theology required a minimum of another ten years of study. Throughout the Middle Ages, the University of Paris grew in size and experienced almost continual conflicts between students and the townspeople. It was also divided by all of the theological and political conflicts of the period: disputes between the king and the pope; disputes between the

Burgundians The Burgundians ( la, Burgundes, Burgundiōnes, Burgundī; on, Burgundar; ang, Burgendas; grc-gre, Βούργουνδοι) were an early Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared in the middle Rhine region, near the Roman Empire, and ...

and the

Armagnacs The Armagnac faction was prominent in French politics and warfare during the Hundred Years' War. It was allied with the supporters of Charles, Duke of Orléans against John the Fearless after Charles' father Louis of Orléans was killed on a ...

; and disputes between English occupiers and the king of France. By the end of the Middle Ages, the University had become a very conservative force against any change in society. Dissection of corpses was forbidden in the medical school long after it became common practice at other universities, and unorthodox ideas were regularly condemned by the faculty; individuals viewed as heretics were punished. In February 1431, a tribunal of faculty members led by

Pierre Cauchon Pierre Cauchon (1371 – 18 December 1442) was Bishop of Beauvais from 1420 to 1432. He was a strong partisan of English interests in France during the latter years of the Hundred Years' War. He was the judge in the trial of Joan of Arc and ...

was called upon by the English and Burgundians to judge whether

Joan of Arc Joan of Arc (french: link=yes, Jeanne d'Arc, translit= �an daʁk} ; 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronati ...

was guilty of

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

. After three months of study, they found her guilty on all charges, and demanded her rapid execution.

Social classes, wealth and poverty

The population of medieval Paris was strictly divided into social classes, whose members wore distinctive clothing, followed strict rules of behavior, and had very distinct roles to play in society. At the top of the social structure was the hereditary nobility. Just below the nobility were the clerics, who made up about ten percent of the city population with the inclusion of students. They maintained their own separate and strict hierarchy. Unlike the nobility, it was possible for those with talent and modest means to enter and advance in the clergy;

came from a family of modest means to become the Bishop of Paris and builder of Notre-Dame cathedral. The wealthy merchants and bankers were a small part of the population, but their power and influence grew throughout the Middle Ages. In the 13th century, the

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

of Paris, those who paid taxes, amounted to about fifteen percent of the population. According to tax records at the end of the 13th century, the wealthiest one percent of Parisians paid eighty percent of the taxes. According to tax records, the wealthy bourgeois of Paris between 1250 and 1350 numbered just 140 families or about two thousand persons. Below this level were the artisans who possessed their own shops and their own tools. According to the ''Livre des métiers'' ("Book of Professions") published in 1268 by the Provost of Paris, the artisans of Paris were formally divided into about one hundred corporations and 1300 distinct professions, each with its own set of rules, largely designed to limit competition and assure employment. The great majority of Parisians, about 70 percent, paid no taxes and led a very precarious existence. Fortunately for the poor, the theology of the Middle Ages required the wealthy to give money to the poor and warned them that it would be difficult for them to enter

Heaven Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...

if they were not charitable. Noble families and the wealthy funded hospitals, orphanages, hospices, and other charitable institutions in the city. Early in the Middle Ages, beggars were generally respected and had an accepted social role. Later in the Middle Ages, at the end of the 14th and early 15th centuries, when the city was struck repeatedly by plague and refugees from wars flooded the city, the charitable institutions were overwhelmed and Parisians became less welcoming; beggars and those without professions were rounded up and expelled from the city.

Commerce

Commerce was a major source of the wealth and influence of Paris in the Middle Ages. Even before the Roman conquest of Gaul, the first inhabitants of the city, the Parisii, had traded with cities as far away as Spain and Eastern Europe and had minted their own coins for this purpose. In the Gallo-Roman town of Lutetia, the boatmen dedicated a column to the god Mercury that was found during excavations under the

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which s ...

of Notre Dame. In 1121, during the reign of Louis VI, the king accorded to the league of boatmen of Paris a fee of sixty centimes for each boatload of wine that arrived in the city during the harvest. In 1170, Louis VII extended the privileges of the river merchants even further; only the boatmen of Paris were allowed to conduct commerce on the river between the bridge of

Mantes Mantes-la-Jolie (, often informally called Mantes) is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region of north-central France. It is located to the west of Paris, from the centre of the capital. Mantes-la-Jolie is a subpre ...

and the two bridges of Paris; the cargoes of other boats would be confiscated. This was the beginning of the close association between the merchants and the king. The arrangement with the river merchants coincided with a great expansion of commerce and increase in the population on the Right Bank of the city. The large monasteries also played an important role in the growth of commerce in the Middle Ages by holding large fairs that attracted merchants from as far away as Saxony and Italy. The Abbey of Saint Denis had been holding a large annual fair since the seventh century; the fair of Saint-Mathias dated to the 8th century; The Lenit Fair appeared in the 10th century, and the Fair of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres began in the 12th century.

The ports

By the time of Philip Augustus the port of the Grève was not large enough to handle all the river commerce. The King granted the league of river merchants a sum collected from each shipload of salt, herring, hay and grain that arrived in the city to build a new port, called de l'Ecole, where Place de l'École is today. The King also gave the corporation the power to supervise the accuracy of the scales used in the markets, and to settle minor commercial disputes. By the 15th century separate ports were established along the river for the delivery of wine, grain, plaster, paving stones, hay, fish, and charcoal. Wood for cooking fires and heating was unloaded at one port, while wood for construction arrived at another. The merchants engaged in each kind of commerce gathered around that port; in 1421, of the twenty-one wine merchants registered in Paris, eleven were located between the Pont Notre-Dame and the hotel Saint-Paul, the neighborhood where their port was located. After the Grève, the second-largest port was by the church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerois, where ships unloaded fish from the coast, wood from the forests along the Aisne and Oise Rivers, hay from the Valley of the Seine, and cider from Normandy.

The markets

In the early Middle Ages, the principal market of Paris was located on the

parvis A parvis or parvise is the open space in front of and around a cathedral or church, especially when surrounded by either colonnades or porticoes, as at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It is thus a church-specific type of forecourt, front yard or a ...

(square) in front of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Other markets took place in the vicinity of the two bridges, the Grand Pont and the Petit Pont, while a smaller market called Palu or Palud, took place in the eastern neighborhood of the city. As the population grew on the Right Bank, another market appeared on the

Place de Grève Place may refer to: Geography * Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population ** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government * "Place", a type of street or road name ** Often ...

, where the Hôtel de Ville is located today, and another near the city gate, at what is now the

Place du Châtelet The Place du Châtelet () is a public square in Paris, on the right bank of the river Seine, on the borderline between the 1st and 4th arrondissements. It lies at the north end of the Pont au Change, a bridge that connects the Île de la Cit� ...

. This market was the site of the ''Grande Boucherie'', the main meat market of the city. The most important market appeared in 1137 when Louis VI purchased a piece of land called Les Champeaux not far from the Place de Grève to create a grain market; over the course of the Middle Ages halls for meat, fish, fruits and vegetables and other food products were built around the grain market, and it became the main food market, known as

Les Halles Les Halles (; 'The Halls') was Paris' central fresh food market. It last operated on January 12, 1973, after which it was "left to the demolition men who will knock down the last three of the eight iron-and-glass pavilions""Les Halles Dead at 200 ...

. It continued to be the main produce market in Paris until the late 20th century, when it was transferred to

Rungis Rungis () is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France, in the ''département'' of Val-de-Marne. It is best known as the location of the large wholesale food market serving the Paris metropolitan area and beyond, the '' Marché d'Int ...

in the Paris suburbs. There were other more specialized markets within the city: beef, veal and pork were sold at the intersection of the Rue Saint Honoré, Rue Tirechappe and Rue des Bourdonnais. Later, during the reign of Charles V, the meat market was transferred to the neighborhood of the Butte Saint-Roche. The market for lamb and mutton was originally near the wooden tower of the old Louvre, until it was moved in 1490 near the city wall at the

Porte d'Orléans The Porte d'Orléans is one of 17 ''portes'' ( city gates of Paris) in the Thiers wall, a defensive wall constructed in the mid-nineteenth century to protect Paris. The wall was demolished after the First World War, creating an open space that wa ...

. The first horse market was established in 1475 near Rue Garancière and Rue de Tournon; it had the picturesque name of ''Pré Crotté'' (the "Field of horse turds").

Artisans and guilds

The second important business community in Paris were that of the artisans and craftsmen, who produced and sold goods of all kinds. They were organized into

guild A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...

s, or corporations, that had strict rules and regulations to protect their members against competition and unemployment. The oldest four corporations were the ''drapiers'', who made cloth; the ''merciers'', who made and sold clothing, the ''epiciers'', who sold food and spices, and the ''pelletiers'', who made fur garments, but there were many more specialized professions, ranging from shoemakers and jewelers to those who made armor and swords. The guilds strictly limited the number of apprentices in each trade and the number of years of apprenticeship. Certain guilds tended to gather on the same streets, though this was not a strict rule. The ''drapers'' had their shops on the Rue de la Vieille-Draperie on the Ile de la Cité, while the ''pelletiers'' were just north of them; the ''armorers'' north of the Châtelet fortress and east of the Rue Saint-Denis. The vendors of parchment, illuminators and book sellers were found on the Left Bank, near the University, on the Rue de la Parcheminerie, Rue Neuve-Notre-Dame, Rue Eremburg-de-Brie, Rue Écrivains, and Rue Saint-Séverin. The manufacture of cloth was important until the 14th century, but it lost its leading role to competition from other cities and was replaced by crafts which made more finished clothing items: tailors, dyers, ribbon-makers, makers of belts and bonnets.

Money changers and bankers

Money changers were active in Paris since at least 1141; they knew the exact values of all the different silver and gold coins in circulation in Europe. They had their establishments primarily on the Grand Pont, which became known as the Pont aux Changeurs and then simply the

Pont au Change The Pont au Change is a bridge over the Seine River in Paris, France. The bridge is located at the border between the first and fourth arrondissements. It connects the Île de la Cité from the Palais de Justice and the Conciergerie, to the Rig ...

. Tax Records show that in 1423 the money changers were among the wealthiest persons in the city; of the twenty persons with the highest incomes, ten were money changers. Between 1412 and 1450, four money changers occupied the position of Provost of the Merchants. But by the end of the 15th century, the system of wealth had changed; the wealthiest Parisians were those who had bought land or positions in the royal administration and were close to the king. Some money changers branched into a new trade, that of lending money for interest. Since this was officially forbidden by the Catholic Church, most in the profession were either

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

or Lombards from Italy. The Lombards, connected to a well-organizer banking system in Italy, specialized in loans to the wealthy and the nobility. Their activities were recorded in Paris archives from 1292 onwards; they made important loans to King Philip IV and Philip VI.

Governing the city

Between 996 and 1031, Robert the Pious named the first ''Prévôt'', or Royal Provost of Paris, to be the administrator of the city. Originally, the position was purchased for a large sum of money, but after scandals during the reign of Louis IX caused by provosts who used the position to become rich, the position was given to proven administrators. The provost lived in the

Grand Châtelet The Grand Châtelet was a stronghold in Ancien Régime Paris, on the right bank of the Seine, on the site of what is now the Place du Châtelet; it contained a court and police headquarters and a number of prisons. The original building on the s ...

fortress. He combined the positions of financial manager, chief of police, chief judge and chief administrator of the city, though the financial management position was soon taken away and given to a separate ''Receveur de Paris''. For his role in administering justice, he had a lieutenant for civil law, one for criminal law, and one for minor infractions. He also had two "examiners" to carry out investigations. In 1301, the provost was given an additional staff of sixty clerks to act as notaries to register documents and decrees. Louis IX created a new position, the Provost of the Merchants (''prévôt des marchands''), to share authority with the Royal Provost. This position recognized the growing power and wealth of the merchants of Paris. He also created the first municipal council of Paris with twenty-four members. The Provost of the Merchants had his headquarters in the Parloir aux Bourgeois, located in the 13th century on Rue Saint-Denis close to the Seine and the Châtelet fortress, where the Royal Provost resided. In 1357, the Provost of the Merchants was

, who purchased the Maison aux Piliers on the

, which became the first city hall; the current city hall occupies the same location. The Parlement de Paris was created in 1250. It was a national, not a local, institution and functioned as a court rather than a legislature by rendering justice in the name of the king. It was usually summoned only in difficult periods when the king wanted to gather broader support for his actions. With the growth in population came growing social tensions. The first riots against the Provost of the Merchants took place in December 1306, when the merchants were accused of raising rents. The houses of many merchants were burned, and twenty-eight rioters were hanged. In January 1357,

led a merchants' revolt in a bid to curb the power of the monarchy and obtain privileges for the city and the Estates General, which had met for the first time in Paris in 1347. After initial concessions by the Crown, the city was retaken by royalist forces in 1358 and Marcel and his followers were killed. Thereafter, the powers of the local government were considerably reduced, and the city was kept much more tightly under royal control.

The police and firemen

The streets of Paris were particularly dangerous at night because of the absence of any lights. As early as 595 AD,

Chlothar II Chlothar II, sometime called "the Young" ( French: le Jeune), (May/June 584 – 18 October 629), was king of Neustria and king of the Franks, and the son of Chilperic I and his third wife, Fredegund. He started his reign as an infant under the ...

, King of the Franks, required that the city have a ''guet'', or force of watchmen, to patrol the streets. It was manned by members of the ''métiers'', the trades and professions in Paris, who served in rotations of three weeks. This night watch was insufficient to maintain security in such a large city, so a second force of guardians was formed whose members were permanently stationed at key points around Paris. The two ''guets'' were under the authority of the Provost of Paris and commanded by the ''Chevalier du guet''. The name of the first one, Geofroy de Courferraud, was recorded in 1260. He commanded a force of twelve

sergeant Sergeant ( abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other un ...

s during the day and an additional twenty sergeants and twelve other sergeants on horseback to patrol the streets at night. The sergeants on horseback went from post to post to see that they were properly manned. The night watch of the tradesmen continued. Groups of six were stationed at the Châtelet to guard the prisoners it contained; in the courtyard of the royal palace to protect the relics in Sainte-Chapelle; at the residence of the king; at the Church of the Madeleine on the Île de la Cité; at the fountain of the Innocents at the Place de Grève; and several other points around the city. This policing system was not very effective. In 1563, it was finally replaced by a larger and more organized force of four hundred soldiers and one hundred cavalry that was reinforced during times of trouble by a militia of one hundred tradesmen from each quarter of the city. There was no professional force of firemen in the city during the Middle Ages; an edict of 1363 required that everyone in a neighborhood join in to fight a fire. The role of firefighters was gradually taken over by monks, who were numerous in the city. The Cordeliers, Dominicans,

Franciscans , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

Jacobins , logo = JacobinVignette03.jpg , logo_size = 180px , logo_caption = Seal of the Jacobin Club (1792–1794) , motto = "Live free or die"(french: Vivre libre ou mourir) , successor = Pa ...

Augustinians Augustinians are members of Christian religious orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, written in about 400 AD by Augustine of Hippo. There are two distinct types of Augustinians in Catholic religious orders dating back to the 12th–13 ...

and

Carmelites , image = , caption = Coat of arms of the Carmelites , abbreviation = OCarm , formation = Late 12th century , founder = Early hermits of Mount Carmel , founding_location = Mount Car ...

all took an active role in fighting fires. The first professional fire companies were not formed until the eighteenth century.

Crime and punishment

Paris, like all large medieval cities, had its share of crime and criminals, though it was not quite as portrayed by Victor Hugo in ''

The Hunchback of Notre Dame ''The Hunchback of Notre-Dame'' (french: Notre-Dame de Paris, translation=''Our Lady of Paris'', originally titled ''Notre-Dame de Paris. 1482'') is a French Gothic novel by Victor Hugo, published in 1831. It focuses on the unfortunate story o ...

'' (1831). The "Grand Court of Miracles" described by Victor Hugo, a gathering place for beggars who pretended to be injured or blind, was a real place: the Fief d'Alby in the Second Arrondissement between the Rue du Caire and Rue Réaumur. Nonetheless, it did not have the name recorded by Hugo or a reputation as a place the police feared to enter until the 17th century. The most common serious crime was murder, which accounted for 55 to 80 percent of the major crimes described in court archives. It was largely the result of the strict code of honor in effect in the Middle Ages; an insult, such as throwing a person's hat in the mud, required a response, which often led to a death. A man whose wife committed adultery was considered justified if he killed the other man. In many cases, these types of murders resulted in a royal pardon. Petty crime was common; men did not have pockets in their clothing, but instead carried purses around their necks or on their belts. Thieves cut them loose and ran away. Heresy and sorcery were considered especially serious crimes; witches and heretics were usually burned, and the king sometimes attended the executions to display his role as defender of the Christian faith. Others were decapitated or hanged. Beginning in about 1314, a large gibet was built on a hill outside of Paris, near the modern

Parc des Buttes Chaumont The Parc des Buttes Chaumont () is a public park situated in northeastern Paris, France, in the 19th arrondissement. Occupying , it is the fifth-largest park in Paris, after the Bois de Vincennes, Bois de Boulogne, Parc de la Villette and Tui ...

, where the bodies of executed criminals were displayed. Le Grand Châtelet vu depuis la rue Saint-Denis, 1800

Prostitution was a separate category of crime. Prostitutes were numerous and mostly came from the countryside or provincial towns; their profession was strictly regulated, but tolerated. In 1256, the government of Louis IX tried to limit the work areas of prostitutes to certain streets, including the Rue Saint-Denis and Rue Chapon on the Right Bank and the Rue Glatigny on the Île de la Cité, but the rules were difficult to enforce. Prostitutes could be found in taverns, cemeteries, and even in cloisters. Prostitutes were forbidden to wear furs, silks, or jewelry, but regulation was impossible, and their numbers continued to increase. The Church had its own system of justice for the ten percent of the Paris population who were clerics, including all the students of the University of Paris. Most clerical offenses were minor, ranging from marriage to deviations from official theology. The Bishop had his own

pillory The pillory is a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse. The pillory is related to the stocks ...

on the square in front of Notre Dame, where clerics who had committed crimes could be put on display. For more serious crimes, the Bishop had a prison in a tower adjoining his residence next to the Cathedral, as well as several other prisons for conducting investigations in which torture was permitted. The church courts could condemn clerics to corporal punishment or banishment. In the most extreme cases, such as sorcery or

, the Bishop could pass the case to the Provost and civil justice system, which could burn or hang those convicted. This was the process used in the case of the leaders of the Knights Templar. The Abbeys of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Sainte-Geneviève were largely responsible for justice on the Left Bank and had their own pillories and small prisons. Royal justice was administered by the Provost of Paris, who had his office and his own prison in the Grand Châtelet fortress on the Right Bank at the end of the Pont de la Cité. He and his two examiners were responsible for judging crimes ranging from theft to murder and sorcery. Royal prisons existed in the city; about a third of their prisoners were debtors who could not pay their debts. Wealthier prisoners paid for the own meals and bed, and their conditions were reasonably comfortable. Prisoners were often released and banished, which saved the royal treasury money. Higher crimes, particularly political crimes, were judged by the Parlement de Paris, which was composed of nobles. The death sentence was very rarely given in Paris courts, only four times between 1380 and 1410. Most prisoners were punished with banishment from the city. Beginning in the reign of Philip VI, political executions, while rare, became more frequent; In 1346 a merchant from Compiègne was tried for saying that Edward III of England had a better claim to the French throne than Philip VI; he was taken to the market square of Les Halles and chopped into small pieces in front of a large crowd.

Daily life

The hours of the day

The time of day in medieval Paris was announced by the church bells, which rang eight times during the day and night for the different calls to prayer at the monasteries and churches:

Prime A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

, for instance, was at six in the morning,

Sext Sext, or Sixth Hour, is a canonical hour of the Divine Office of almost all the traditional Christian liturgies. It consists mainly of psalms and is held around noon. Its name comes from Latin and refers to the sixth hour of the day after dawn. W ...

at midday, and

Vespers Vespers is a service of evening prayer, one of the canonical hours in Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic (both Latin and Eastern), Lutheran, and Anglican liturgies. The word for this fixed prayer time comes from the Latin , meaning ...

at six in the evening, though later in summer and earlier in the winter. The churches also rang their bell for a daily

curfew A curfew is a government order specifying a time during which certain regulations apply. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to ''not'' be in public places or on roads within a certain time frame, typically in the evening and ...

at seven in the evening in winter and eight in summer. The working day was usually measured by the same bells, ending either at vespers or at the curfew. There was little precision in timekeeping, and the bells rarely rang at exactly the same time. The first mechanical clock in Paris appeared in 1300, and in 1341, a clock was recorded at the Sainte-Chapelle. It was not until 1370, under Charles V, who was particularly concerned by precise time, that a mechanical clock was installed on a tower of the Palace, which sounded the hours. Similar clocks were installed at the other royal residences, the hôtel Saint-Paul in the Marais and the Château of Vincennes. This was the first time that the city had an official time of day. By 1418, the churches of Saint-Paul and Saint-Eustache also had clocks, and time throughout the city began to be standardized.

Food and drink

During the Middle Ages, the staple food of most Parisians was bread. Grain was brought by boat on the

and the Seine from towns in the surrounding region and unloaded at the market on the Place de Grève. Mills near the Grand Pont turned it into flour. During the reign of Philip II, a new grain market was opened at

, which became the main market. When the harvest was poor, the royal government took measures to assure the supply of grain to the city. In 1305, when prices rose too high, Philip IV ordered a collection of all grain remaining in storage in the region and its prompt delivery to Paris at a fixed maximum price. Beginning in 1391, grain merchants were not allowed to hold more than an eight days' supply. Beginning in 1439, all farmers within eight leagues around the city (about 31 kilometers) could sell their grain only to the Paris markets. Meat was the other main staple of the diet. Enormous herds of cattle, pigs and sheep were brought into the city each day. The animals raised within seven leagues of Paris could be sold only in Paris. The largest cattle market was on the Place aux Pourceaux, at the intersection of the

Rue de la Ferronnerie The Rue de la Ferronnerie is a street in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, in the Les Halles area. History * Before 1229 the name of the street was ''rue de la Charronnerie (ou des Charrons)''. The street had its current name in 1229. * Henry ...

and Rue des Dechargeurs. Another large market was located at the Place aux Veaux, near the Grande Boucherie, the major slaughterhouse. Medieval peasant meal

Fish was another important part of the Parisian diet, largely for religious reasons; there were more than one hundred fifty days a year, including Fridays and Saturdays, when Parisians were required to fast and to eat only boiled vegetables and fish. Most of the fish was salted herring brought from ports on the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegia ...

and the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

. Wealthy Parisians were able to afford fresh fish brought on horseback during the night from

Dieppe Dieppe (; Norman: ''Dgieppe'') is a coastal commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. Dieppe is a seaport on the English Channel at the mouth of the river Arques. A regular ferry service runs to Newh ...

. The diets of the rich Parisians in the late Middle Ages were exotic and varied; they were supplied with olive oil and citrus fruits from the

Mediterranean Basin In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (; also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea) is the region of lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have mostly a Mediterranean climate, with mild to cool, rainy winters and wa ...

cinnamon Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus '' Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, break ...

from

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

, and

saffron Saffron () is a spice derived from the flower of ''Crocus sativus'', commonly known as the "saffron crocus". The vivid crimson stigma and styles, called threads, are collected and dried for use mainly as a seasoning and colouring agent i ...

and

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double s ...

from Italy and

. Contrary to a popular notion, spices were not used only to hide the taste of spoiled meat; they were valued for the medicinal qualities and believed to improve the digestion. The chefs of the time made sauces and

ragout Ragout ( French ''ragoût''; ) is a main dish stew. Etymology The term comes from the French ''ragoûter'', meaning: "to revive the taste". Preparation The basic method of preparation involves slow cooking over a low heat. The main ingredients ...

s by combining spices with an acidic liquid, either vinegar or the white wine from the

Île-de-France The Île-de-France (, ; literally "Isle of France") is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France. Centred on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the country and often called the ''Région parisienne'' (; en, Pa ...

. Wine had been introduced to Paris by the Romans, and it was the principal beverage they drank during the Middle Ages. Most of the inexpensive wine came from vineyards neighboring the city: from Belleville,

, Issy,

Vanves Vanves () is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is one of the most densely populated municipalities in Europe and the tenth in France History On 1 January 1860, the city of Paris ...

. Wine merchants were regulated and taxed by the royal government beginning in 1121. Better-quality wines arrived in the city between September through November from

Champagne Champagne (, ) is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, that demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, sp ...

, and

Orléans Orléans (;"Orleans"
(US) and mendicant A mendicant (from la, mendicans, "begging") is one who practices mendicancy, relying chiefly or exclusively on alms to survive. In principle, mendicant religious orders own little property, either individually or collectively, and in many ins ...

s begging for alms, and flocks of sheep, pigs, and cows being driven to the markets. Official news and announcements were made to the Parisians by the guild of town criers, who were first chartered by the king, and then put under the authority of the League of River Merchants. They had their own patron saint and holiday. There were twenty-four members of the guild recorded at one time in Paris, and all merchants and other persons were required to be silent when the crier was making an announcement. The smells of Paris were also varied and unavoidable. In winter, the overwhelming smell was burning wood and charcoal used for heating and cooking. Year round, the streets smelled strongly of unwashed persons, animals, and human and animal waste products. Chamber pots of urine were routinely emptied out of windows onto the street. Along with fears of an uprising of the turbulent Parisians, the smells and bad air of central Paris were a major reason why Charles V moved the royal residence permanently from the Île de la Cité outside the old city walls to a new residence, the Hotel Saint-Pol, near the new Bastille fortress.

Festivities and processions

The calendar of Parisians in the Middle Ages was filled with holidays and events that were widely and enthusiastically celebrated, perhaps because of the precarious lives of the ordinary populace. In addition to holidays for

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...

Easter Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the ''Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel P ...

Pentecost Pentecost (also called Whit Sunday, Whitsunday or Whitsun) is a Christian holiday which takes place on the 50th day (the seventh Sunday) after Easter Sunday. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of ...

and Ascension, each of the guilds and corporations of the city had its own

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person. I ...

and celebrated that saint's feast day. The unmarried clerks of the royal palace had their own corporation, ''La Basoche'', which celebrated its own holiday with a parade, farces and satirical theatrical productions. The day of Sainte-Geneviève, the patron saint of the city, had an especially large celebration, with

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

s and processions. Some holidays with origins in pagan times were also marked, such as New Year's and the

Summer solstice The summer solstice, also called the estival solstice or midsummer, occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the summer s ...

, which was the occasion for huge

bonfire A bonfire is a large and controlled outdoor fire, used either for informal disposal of burnable waste material or as part of a celebration. Etymology The earliest recorded uses of the word date back to the late 15th century, with the Catho ...

s called the Fire of Saint Jean. A special event in the royal family – a coronation, birth, baptism, marriage, or simply the entry of the king or queen into the city – was usually the occasion for a public celebration. Large and colorful processions frequently took place to mark special days or events, such as a military victory, or ask for God's protection in the event of a flood or an outbreak of the plague. The most important annual procession took place on the Day of Saint Denis; it proceeded from the Châtelet fortress to the Basilica of Saint-Denis and was led by the Bishop of Paris and the clergy of Paris, followed by the members of religious orders and representatives of all the guilds and professions of the city. A similar procession took place from the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève on the Left Bank to Saint-Denis, including the students and faculty of the University.

Hospitals

According to tradition, the first Paris hospital, the Hôtel Dieu, was founded in 651 by Saint Landry, the Bishop of Paris. It was first mentioned in texts in 829. It was located on the southern side of the Île de la Cité between the river and the parvis of Notre Dame, which gave it direct access to the river for drinking water, washing sheets, disposing of waste, and transporting patients. It was staffed by religious orders and was usually crowded, with two or three patients in a bed. Medical care as we know it today was minimal, but patients did receive careful attention, food, water, clean sheets, and there were regular religious services every day. The 12th century and 13th saw the founding of several new hospitals sponsored by religious orders and wealthy families: the Hospital of Saint-Gervais in 1171, the Hospital of the Trinity in 1210, and the Hospital of Saint Catherine in 1188. Later in the Middle Ages, there were hospitals founded specially for destitute women, repented prostitutes and poor widows. They also served to provide employment as nurses or maids for women arriving from the provinces.

Leprosy Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria '' Mycobacterium leprae'' or '' Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve dam ...

arrived in Paris after the Crusades, due to the contacts with the infected areas in the eastern Mediterranean and the movements of population. By 1124, King Louis VII established a large

leprosarium A leper colony, also known by many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy. '' M. leprae'', the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believed to have spread from East Af ...

in the

Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis The Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis is a street in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. It crosses the arrondissement from north to south, linking the Porte Saint-Denis to La Chapelle Métro station and passing the Gare du Nord. History The Rue du Fa ...

. Between 1254 and 1260, Louis IX built a special hospital for three hundred poor blind patients near the Porte Saint-Honoré on the

Wall of Charles V The wall of Charles V, built from 1356 to 1383 is one of the city walls of Paris. It was built on the right bank of the river Seine outside the wall of Philippe Auguste. In the 1640s, the western part of the wall of Charles V was demolished and ...

. In 1363, the corporation of merchants of Paris founded a home for poor orphans, the Hospice du Saint-Esprit, on the Place de Grève.

Architecture and urbanism

The birth of Gothic style

The flourishing of religious architecture in Paris was largely the work of

, the abbot of Saint-Denis from 1122 to 1151 and advisor to Kings Louis VI and

. He rebuilt the façade of the old Carolingian

Basilica of Saint Denis The Basilica of Saint-Denis (french: Basilique royale de Saint-Denis, links=no, now formally known as the ) is a large former medieval abbey church and present cathedral in the commune of Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris. The building ...

, dividing it into three horizontal levels and three vertical sections to symbolize the

Holy Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...

. Then, from 1140 to 1144, he rebuilt the rear of the church with a majestic and dramatic wall of

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

windows that flooded the church with light. This style, later designated Gothic, was copied by other Paris churches: the Priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs,

Saint-Pierre de Montmartre Saint-Pierre de Montmartre () is one of the oldest surviving churches in Paris, second to the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, but the lesser known of the two main churches in Montmartre, the other being the more famous 19th-century Sacré-Cœ ...

, and

Saint-Germain-des-Prés Saint-Germain-des-Prés () is one of the four administrative quarters of the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France, located around the church of the former Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Its official borders are the River Seine on the nort ...

, and quickly spread to England and Germany. In the 13th century, King Louis IX specially built a masterpiece of Gothic Art, the

, to house

relic In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tangi ...

s from the

Crucifixion of Jesus The crucifixion and death of Jesus occurred in 1st-century Judea, most likely in AD 30 or AD 33. It is described in the four canonical gospels, referred to in the New Testament epistles, attested to by other ancient sources, and consider ...

. Built between 1241 and 1248, it has the oldest stained glass windows remaining in Paris. At the same time that the Saint-Chapelle was built, stained glass

rose window Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in Gothic cathedrals and churches. The windows are divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery. The term ''rose window'' w ...

s, eighteen meters high, were added to the

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform (" cross-shaped") building wi ...

of Notre Dame Cathedral.

The town house

Beginning in the reign of Charles VI (1380–1422), French noblemen and wealthy merchants began building large townhouses, mostly in the

neighborhood that were usually surrounded by walls and often had gardens. King Charles and Queen

Isabeau of Bavaria Isabeau of Bavaria (or Isabelle; also Elisabeth of Bavaria-Ingolstadt; c. 1370 – September 1435) was Queen of France from 1385 to 1422. She was born into the House of Wittelsbach as the only daughter of Duke Stephen III of Bavaria-Ingols ...

spent most of their time in their own house in that neighborhood, the

, which had been built by Charles V. Louis d'Orléans, the brother of the Charles VI, had nine separate residences in the city, including the

Hôtel des Tournelles The hôtel des Tournelles () is a now-demolished collection of buildings in Paris built from the 14th century onwards north of place des Vosges. It was named after its many 'tournelles' or little towers. It was owned by the kings of France for ...

, whose site became the

Place des Vosges The Place des Vosges (), originally Place Royale, is the oldest planned square in Paris, France. It is located in the '' Marais'' district, and it straddles the dividing-line between the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris. It was a fashionable ...

in about 1600. The Duke de Berry had eleven Paris residences; his preferred house was the Hôtel de Nesle on the Left Bank opposite the Île de la Cité, which used part of the old fortifications built by Philip II and which possessed a large gallery overlooking the Seine. Magnificent town houses were built between 1485 and 1510 for the Abbot of the Cluny Monastery; one of them is now the Museum of the Middle Ages. The

Hôtel de Sens The Hôtel de Sens () or Hôtel des archevêques de Sens is a 16th-century ''hôtel particulier'', or private mansion, in the Marais, in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, France. It nowadays houses the . History The ''hôtel'' was built to serv ...

, the residence of the archbishop of Sens from 1490, has towers at the corners and flanking the entrance in the manner of a medieval

château A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. Nowaday ...

. The private houses of the wealthy were often built of stone, but the great majority of houses in Paris were built of wood beams and plaster. Plaster was abundant thanks to the

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywa ...

mines of

, and its widespread use prevented large-scale fires of the kind that destroyed many medieval neighborhoods. The interiors were covered with plaster plaques, and the roofs covered with tile; only the wealthy could afford slate roofs. The oldest surviving house in Paris is the house of

Nicolas Flamel Nicolas Flamel (; 1330 – 22 March 1418) was a French scribe and manuscript-seller. After his death, Flamel developed a reputation as an alchemist believed to have created and discovered the philosopher's stone and to have thereby achieved im ...

(1407), located at 51

Rue de Montmorency The rue de Montmorency is a street in the historic Le Marais quarter of Paris, part of the city's 3rd arrondissement. It runs from the rue du Temple to the rue Saint-Martin. History Named in 1768 after the Montmorency family, prominent resid ...

. It was not a private home, but a hostel for the poor.

Streets

The major crossroads of medieval Paris was the intersection of the Grand-Rue Saint-Martin and the Grand-Rue Saint-Honoré; under Philip II, these were also among the first streets in the city to be paved with stones. According to a plan drawn up in 1222, the Rue Saint-Honoré was just six meters wide, enough room for two carriages to pass each other. The owners of houses along the streets, not wanting their houses to be scraped by passing carts and wagons, often put stone blocks, benches and shelters in the street that made them even narrower. Later in the Middle Ages, the widest streets in Paris were the Rue Saint-Antoine, which was twenty meters wide, and the Rue Saint-Honoré, which was widened to fifteen meters. Some passageways in the heart of the city were only sixty centimeters wide, barely room for two persons to pass. The streets typically had a narrow channel down the center to carry away rainwater and waste water. Upper floors of houses were wider than the ground floor and overhung the street; residents often dumped their waste water out the window down the street. Flocks of animals also frequently filled the streets. The houses on the streets had no numbers; they were usually identified by colorful signs that created additional obstacles for passers-by.

Bridges

The first two bridges in Paris were built by the Parisii in the third century BC to connect the Île-de-la-Cité to the Left and Right Bank of the Seine. They were burned by the Parisii themselves in an unsuccessful effort to defend the city against the Romans. They were rebuilt by the Romans, then regularly destroyed and replaced over the centuries in almost the same locations. The first Grand Pont was built by Charles V just to the west of the modern

. It was carried away by the river in 1280, and rebuilt in stone, with houses on either side. The medieval Petit Pont was on the same location as the modern bridge of that name, at the beginning of the Rue Saint-Jacques. In 1296, a flood washed away both of the bridges. The Grand Pont was reconstructed just to the east of the earlier bridge, and in 1304, Philip IV had the money changers installed in houses along the bridge, giving the bridge the name Pont au Changeurs, or Pont au Change. The Petit Pont was rebuilt on its old site. The original Grand Point included several grain mills to take advantage of the flow of water through its arches. When the Grand Pont was rebuilt in its new location, the mills were rebuilt under the arches of the old bridge, which transformed into a new footbridge called the Pont aux Meuniers, or bridge of the millers. At the beginning of the 14th century, a new bridge was built to connect the island to the Rue Saint-Martin. It was replaced in 1413 by a new wooden bridge, the

Pont Notre-Dame The Pont Notre-Dame is a bridge that crosses the Seine in Paris, France linking the ''quai de Gesvres'' on the Rive Droite with the ''quai de la Corse'' on the Île de la Cité. The bridge is noted for being the "most ancient" in Paris, in the s ...

. That bridge washed away in 1499 and was rebuilt in stone between 1500 and 1514 with sixty-eight houses of brick and stone positioned on top of it. The construction of a new stone bridge, the

Pont Saint-Michel Pont Saint-Michel is a bridge linking the Place Saint-Michel on the left bank of the river Seine to the Île de la Cité. It was named after the nearby chapel of Saint-Michel. It is near Sainte Chapelle and the Palais de Justice. The present 6 ...

, was decided upon in 1378. A location downstream of the Petit-Pont was chosen on the line of the Rue Saint-Denis from the Grand-Pont on the Right Bank and the

Rue de la Harpe The rue de la Harpe is a street in Paris' Latin Quarter. Relatively calm and cobblestoned along much of its length, it runs in a south-easterly direction between the rue de la Huchette and the rue Saint-Séverin, where it turns south-west to whe ...

on the Left Bank. This allowed for a direct route across the Île de la Cité. Construction lasted from 1379 until 1387. Once complete, the Parisians named the bridge the "

Pont-Neuf The Pont Neuf (, "New Bridge") is the oldest standing bridge across the river Seine in Paris, France. It stands by the western (downstream) point of the Île de la Cité, the island in the middle of the river that was, between 250 and 225 BC ...

" (New Bridge). The bridge's sides were quickly filled with houses. It was first occupied largely by dyers (''fripiers'') and tapestry-weavers, and later, in the 17th century, by perfume makers and booksellers. During the winter of 1407–1408, it was destroyed by river ice and rebuilt.

Water

In the Middle Ages, the water of the Seine was polluted with waste from butchers, tanners, decomposing corpses in cemeteries, and animal and human waste. Wealthy Parisians, the monasteries, and the royal palace had their own wells, usually in the basements of their buildings. Ordinary Parisians took their water from one of the three city public fountains that existed in 1292 or paid one of the fifty-five water porters registered in that year to carry water from the fountains to their residence. Many Parisians took the risk and drank the water from the river.

Public bathing Public baths originated when most people in population centers did not have access to private bathing facilities. Though termed "public", they have often been restricted according to gender, religious affiliation, personal membership, and other cr ...

were common in medievals

, and there were about twenty-six

public bath Public baths originated when most people in population centers did not have access to private bathing facilities. Though termed "public", they have often been restricted according to gender, religious affiliation, personal membership, and other cr ...

s in Paris in 1272.

Sewers

The ancient Gallo-Roman town of Lutetia had an efficient sewer along what is now the

Boulevard Saint-Michel Boulevard Saint-Michel () is one of the two major streets in the Latin Quarter of Paris, the other being Boulevard Saint-Germain. It is a tree-lined boulevard which runs south from the Pont Saint-Michel on the Seine and Place Saint-Michel, cr ...

, but it was ruined and abandoned in the third century AD. In the medieval period, the few paved streets had small channels in the center for waste water and rain. They ran downhill into two larger open sewers, and then either to the Seine or to the moats of the fortifications built by Charles V. Documents from 1325 record a sewer called the "Sewer of the Bishop" on the Île de la Cité that ran beneath the Hôtel Dieu into the Seine. A more ambitious covered sewer, three hundred meters long, was built in 1370 from the Rue Montmartre to the moat of the city walls. Another covered sewer was built along the Rue Saint-Antoine toward the Bastille; it had to be diverted to the modern Rue de Turenne in 1413 because it passed too close to the residence of King Charles VI at the Hôtel Saint-Pol, and the aroma disturbed the king and his court. The city did not have an efficient system of covered sewers until Napoleon built them at the beginning of the 19th century.

Street lighting

Street lighting was almost nonexistent in the Middle Ages. In 1318, it was recorded that there were just three street lanterns in Paris: one candle in a lantern outside the entrance to the Châtelet fortress; a candle outside the Tour de Nesle to indicate its entrance to boatmen; and a third lantern outside the Cemetery of the Innocents to remind passers-by to pray for the souls of the deceased. Very little light came from houses, since glass windows were extremely rare; most windows were closed with wooden shutters. The wealthy lighted the streets at night with servants carrying torches.

The arts

Illuminated manuscripts and painting

The first illuminated manuscripts in Paris began to be produced in workshops in the 11th century. At first, they were created by monks in the abbeys, particularly Saint-Denis, Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Notre-Dame and Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The first recognized artist of the period was the monk Ingelard, who painted miniatures at the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés between 1030 and 1060. By the 13th century, a particular Paris style had emerged that could be seen in manuscripts, stained glass windows, and even architecture: a complex arrangement of medallions, clear contours, warm and deep shades of color, and faces that were usually depicted without color. As the Middle Ages progressed and the illuminated works became more valuable, they began to be produced by noted artists in workshops for the court and for the wealthy merchants. One notable example is the Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, named for the third wife of King Charles IV, that were made by

Jean Pucelle Jean Pucelle (c. 1300 – 1355; active c. 1320–1350) was a Parisian Gothic-era manuscript illuminator who excelled in the invention of drolleries as well as traditional iconography. He is considered one of the best miniaturists o ...

between 1325 and 1328. The painters of Paris, called ''imagers-paintres'', were members of the same guild or corporation as the illuminators and the sculptors; there were twenty-nine painters enrolled in the guild in 1329. In the 14th and 15th centuries, many of the painters came from Flanders and the north and worked for the courts of Duke John of Berry at

Bourges Bourges () is a commune in central France on the river Yèvre. It is the capital of the department of Cher, and also was the capital city of the former province of Berry. History The name of the commune derives either from the Bituriges, ...

and the

Duke of Burgundy Duke of Burgundy (french: duc de Bourgogne) was a title used by the rulers of the Duchy of Burgundy, from its establishment in 843 to its annexation by France in 1477, and later by Holy Roman Emperors and Kings of Spain from the House of Habsbur ...

, as well as for clients in Paris. Among the most celebrated artists were the

Limbourg Brothers The Limbourg brothers ( nl, Gebroeders van Limburg or Gebroeders Van Lymborch; fl. 1385 – 1416) were famous Dutch miniature painters (Herman, Paul, and Johan) from the city of Nijmegen. They were active in the early 15th century in Franc ...

, who produced the

Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (; en, The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry) or Très Riches Heures, is the most famous and possibly the best surviving example of manuscript illumination in the late phase of the International Gothi ...

, and

Jean Fouquet Jean (or Jehan) Fouquet (ca.1420–1481) was a French painter and miniaturist. A master of panel painting and manuscript illumination, and the apparent inventor of the portrait miniature, he is considered one of the most important painters from ...

, who illustrated the history of France for his royal patrons.

Sculpture

The art of sculpture, practiced in Paris since Roman times, reached a summit during the Middle Ages in the decoration of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, particularly in the sculptures above the portals on the western facade. Sculptors were known as ''imagiers'' or ''tombiers'', since they often made tombs. The timpanium, or arch-shaped ensemble of sculptures over the central door, portrayed the

Virgin and Child In art, a Madonna () is a representation of Mary, either alone or with her child Jesus. These images are central icons for both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The word is (archaic). The Madonna and Child type is very prevalent i ...

enthroned and surrounded by saints. It was made about 1170 in a more traditional style taken from older churches in the

Auvergne Auvergne (; ; oc, label=Occitan, Auvèrnhe or ) is a former administrative region in central France, comprising the four departments of Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal and Haute-Loire. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region Auver ...

. The Portal of

Saint Anne According to Christian apocryphal and Islamic tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary and the maternal grandmother of Jesus. Mary's mother is not named in the canonical gospels. In writing, Anne's name and that of her husband Joachim come ...

, built later, was in a more realistic and distinctively Parisian style; the face of each figure reflects an individualized and naturalistic depiction. Other important works of sculpture were created for the tombs of the French Kings in the

Abbey of Saint-Denis The Basilica of Saint-Denis (french: Basilique royale de Saint-Denis, links=no, now formally known as the ) is a large former medieval abbey church and present cathedral in the commune of Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris. The building ...

. The sculptor Jean de Liège, from Flanders, sculpted images of

and Jeanne de Bourbon for the château of the Louvre, as well as several tombs for members of the royal family at Saint Denis.

Stained glass

Stained glass, or ''vitrail'', the use of small plaques of colored glass joined by lead to depict historic events and figures, was not invented in Paris. It was recorded in texts in other parts of Europe in the late 9th century, but in Paris of the 12th and 13th centuries, it reached new heights of drama and artistry. Advancements in architecture, particularly at the Abbey of Saint-Denis and the Cathedral of Notre Dame, allowed stone walls to be replaced by walls of stained glass that flooded churches with colored light. In medieval theology, light was considered divine, and the windows gave a theological and moral message, particularly since most people attending church could not read. The smaller windows, closer to the viewer, told familiar bible stories. The larger and higher windows were devoted to images of saints and patriarchs, while the immense rose windows on the transepts or facades of the churches portrayed epic stories; the last judgement, or the life of the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jews, Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Jose ...

. The 12th-century windows were composed of many small medallions and used lighter colors so that the churches would not be too dark inside. In the 13th century, the colors became darker and richer as the windows became larger, for example in the royal chapel of

. By the end of the Middle Ages, the artists of the windows had introduced more realistic effects such as perspective and spread images over more than one panel of glass. The glass became thinner and allowed more light to enter. Often the details of the images were painted on the glass or were surrounded by frames of clear glass. The windows of the upper chapel of Sainte-Chapelle today contain the oldest medieval windows still in place in the city; portions of other original windows can be seen in the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages.

Events

Plague, war, and rebellions

In the late 13th and early 14th centuries, tensions began to emerge between the Parisians and the royal government. Philip II granted the merchants monopolies and a role in the administration of the city, but he also expected them to pay for the privilege with taxes and fees. Between 1293 and 1300, Philip IV began collecting taxes on all commercial transactions and the transport of goods. In 1306, when the king revalued the French currency, rents tripled; the Parisians rioted and sacked the house of the provost of the merchants, who collected the rents. Twenty-eight rioters were arrested, tried and hanged at the gates of the city. In the middle of the 14th century, Paris was struck by two great catastrophes: the

Bubonic plague Bubonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by the plague bacterium (''Yersinia pestis''). One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and vomiting, as well ...

and the

Hundred Years' War The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from disputed claims to the French throne between the English House of Planta ...

. In the first epidemic of the plague in 1348–1349, forty to fifty thousand Parisians died, a quarter of the population. The plague returned in 1360–61, 1363, and 1366–1368. The Hundred Years' War between France and England, which began in 1337, brought new woes to the Parisians. In 1356, the King John II was captured by the English at the

Battle of Poitiers The Battle of Poitiers was fought on 19September 1356 between a French army commanded by King JohnII and an Anglo- Gascon force under Edward, the Black Prince, during the Hundred Years' War. It took place in western France, south of Poiti ...

. The Dauphin, the future

, was named regent and tried to raise money to pay ransom for his father. He summoned the Estates-General and asked for the coins of Paris to be devalued in order to put more money into the treasury. The provost of the merchants,

, a prosperous cloth merchant who represented Paris in the Estates-General, refused and demanded a role for the Estates General. When the Dauphin refused, Marcel organized strikes and riots until the Dauphin was forced to concede powers to the Estates-General. The Dauphin was obliged to wear a red and blue cap, the colors of the city of Paris. The followers of Marcel killed two of the counselors of the Dauphin, but Marcel stopped the rioters from killing the Dauphin. The Dauphin escaped Paris, raised an army, and laid siege to Paris. The followers of Marcel gradually abandoned him, and, hoping for royal pardon, killed him in 1358 by throwing him from the walls at the

. The king and royal government returned to the city, and the powers of the provost of the Paris merchants were drastically reduced; until the French Revolution, it became only a symbolic office.

The Civil War between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs

Beginning in 1392, King Charles VI began to show increasing signs of madness. Two princes of the royal family,

Louis I, Duke of Orléans Louis I of Orléans (13 March 1372 – 23 November 1407) was Duke of Orléans from 1392 to his death. He was also Duke of Touraine (1386–1392), Count of Valois (1386?–1406) Blois (1397–1407), Angoulême (1404–1407), ...

, the younger brother of the king, and

John the Fearless John I (french: Jean sans Peur; nl, Jan zonder Vrees; 28 May 137110 September 1419) was a scion of the French royal family who ruled the Burgundian State from 1404 until his death in 1419. He played a key role in French national affairs during ...

, Duke of Burgundy, began a battle for the control of Paris. On 23 November 1407, Louis of Orléans was murdered on the streets of Paris by agents of the duke of Burgundy, who took over the royal administration. The son of the murdered duke, Charles of Orléans, pretended to accept the Burgundians, but quietly assembled a coalition of other nobles, including the Dukes of Berry and Bourbon, the count of Alençon, and the count of Armagnac. They became known as the

. Their feud turned into the

. Paris was soon divided into two hostile parties. The Orléans party, or Armagnacs, had many followers in the royal administration and treasury, whereas supporters of the duke of Burgundy had a strong following within the University of Paris. In 1408, university scholars in prepared an elaborate scholarly justification for the murder of Louis of Orléans. The corporations of artisans also took sides; the butchers, one of the largest and most powerful guilds, gave their support to the Burgundians, and were rewarded with patronage, influence and large casks of

Burgundy wine Burgundy wine ( or ') is made in the Burgundy region of eastern France, in the valleys and slopes west of the Saône, a tributary of the Rhône. The most famous wines produced here, and those commonly referred to as "Burgundies," are dry red w ...

. In April 1413, after much political maneuvering, the Burgundians inspired a new strike against the Armagnacs that resulted in the

Cabochien Revolt The Cabochien revolt was an episode in the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War, civil war between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians which was in turn a part of the Hundred Years' War. In the spring of 1413, John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, manage ...

: several thousand working-class Parisians recruited by the Burgundians and known as Cabochians stormed through the streets to attack or arrest known supporters of the Armagnac Party. They invaded the houses of Queen

and other persons close to the Dauphin. The Burgundians soon lost control of the movement they had sponsored; members of the government and army were arrested and imprisoned and their places taken by Cabochians. The Cabochians demanded large payments from wealthy Parisians, and a reign of terror and assassination took hold of the city. A reaction against the excesses of the Cabochians and the Burgundians followed. Soldiers recruited by the merchants of Paris took control of the streets, Armagnac soldiers entered the city and the leaders of the Cabochians fled Paris along with John the Fearless, the leader of the Burgundians. The Armagnacs imposed strict surveillance of the Parisians; the guild of butchers, supporters of the Burgundians, was stripped of its status, and its headquarters, the chief slaughterhouse, was demolished. The city was soon threatened from a new direction. In October 1415, the English army defeated the French at the

Battle of Agincourt The Battle of Agincourt ( ; french: Azincourt ) was an English victory in the Hundred Years' War. It took place on 25 October 1415 (Saint Crispin's Day) near Azincourt, in northern France. The unexpected English victory against the numerical ...

and marched toward Paris. John the Fearless made new efforts to recapture the city in 1414, 1415 and 1417, all without success, but during the night of 28–29 May 1418, his forces were able to enter quietly and seize the city with the aid of allies inside. Arrests and massacres followed, with some three to four hundred persons killed, including

Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac (1360 – 12 June 1418) was Count of Armagnac and Constable of France. He was the son of John II, Count of Armagnac, and Jeanne de Périgord. He succeeded in Armagnac at the death of his brother, John III, in ...

The English and Burgundian Occupation

Le siège de Paris en 1429 par Jeanne d'Arc - Martial

In 1420, King Charles VI was compelled by the

Treaty of Troyes The Treaty of Troyes was an agreement that King Henry V of England and his heirs would inherit the French throne upon the death of King Charles VI of France. It was formally signed in the French city of Troyes on 21 May 1420 in the aftermath of ...

to accept the English king,

Henry V Henry V may refer to: People * Henry V, Duke of Bavaria (died 1026) * Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1081/86–1125) * Henry V, Duke of Carinthia (died 1161) * Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (c. 1173–1227) * Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (1 ...

, as the regent and rightful heir to the French throne. On 21 May and 30 May, the merchants of Paris and the faculty of the University took an oath to respect English rule. The English occupation force in Paris was small, only about two hundred men stationed in the Bastille, the Louvre and the Chateau of Vincennes. They left the administration of the city to the Burgundians. Henry V of England died on 31 August 1422, and Charles VI died fifty days later. As a child, King

Henry VI of England Henry VI (6 December 1421 – 21 May 1471) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. The only child of Henry V, he succeeded to the English throne ...

resided in Paris for only one month, for his coronation at Notre-Dame in December 1431. The new king of France, Charles VII, only ruled territories in France south of the Loire River. When

tried to liberate Paris on 8 September 1429, the Parisian merchant class joined with the English and Burgundians to keep her out. She was wounded and captured soon afterwards, then put on trial by the English; a tribunal of scholars from the University of Paris judged her guilty and called for her swift execution. English occupation of Paris lasted until 1436. After a series of French victories, the Burgundians changed sides, the English were allowed to depart, and Charles VII was finally able to return to the capital. Many neighborhoods were in ruins; a hundred thousand people, half the population, had left.

The end of the Middle Ages

After the departure of the English, Paris became France's capital once again, but throughout the rest of the 15th century, French monarchs chose to live in the Loire Valley, returning to Paris only on special occasions. King Francis I finally returned the royal residence to Paris in 1528, and thereafter, Paris gradually made the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. The old

collapsed in 1499. To build a new bridge, an Italian architect who had worked on the Renaissance-style châteaux at Amboise and

Blois Blois ( ; ) is a commune and the capital city of Loir-et-Cher department, in Centre-Val de Loire, France, on the banks of the lower Loire river between Orléans and Tours. With 45,898 inhabitants by 2019, Blois is the most populated city of the d ...

Giovanni Giocondo Giovanni Giocondo, Order of Friars Minor, (c. 1433 – 1515) was an Italian friar, architect, antiquary, archaeologist, and classical scholar. Biography Giovanni Giocondo was born in Verona around 1433. He joined the Dominican Order at t ...

, was brought to Paris, and he constructed the new bridge with rows of houses all in the same style, one of the first examples of Renaissanace urbanism in Paris. The old Louvre fortress was finally demolished and replaced by a palace in the Renaissance style. There were also other important signs of change; the first printing press was installed in Paris in 1470, and the printed book became a major force for intellectual and cultural change.

Chronology of major events

* 987 –

is elected King of France. * 1113 – Founding of the Abbey of Saint-Victor by Louis VI. * 1163 –

lays the cornerstone of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame-de-Paris * 1171 –

confirms the privileges of the corporation of river merchants. * 1191–1223 – The Wall of Philip II Augustus is built around the city. * 1194 – Construction begins on the

fortress. * 1200 – Philip II takes the students and teachers of the university under his protection. * 1215 –

gives the

its first official charter. * 1248 – The

is completed. * 1254 – Foundation of the

College of Sorbonne The College of Sorbonne (french: Collège de Sorbonne) was a theological college of the University of Paris, founded in 1253 (confirmed in 1257) by Robert de Sorbon (1201–1274), after whom it was named. With the rest of the Paris colleges, ...

. * 1314 – Jacques DeMolay, grand master of the

Knights Templar , colors = White mantle with a red cross , colors_label = Attire , march = , mascot = Two knights riding a single horse , equipment ...

, is burned at the stake on the

. * 1348–49 – The Bubonic Plague strikes Paris, killing a third of the inhabitants. * 1355 –

is elected Provost of the Merchants. * 1357 – Étienne Marcel establishes the city government in the Maison des Pilliers, on the site of the future Hôtel de Ville. * 1358 – Étienne Marcel tries to hand over the city to the English and is assassinated. * 1360 – The

becomes the royal residence of

. The Royal Palace is used for justice and administration. * 1378 – Hugues Aubriot, Provost of Paris, has the Petit-Pont-Neuf built. It becomes the

in 1424. * 1407 – Charles VI purchases the

and makes it the royal residence. * 1413 – Construction of the

. * 1418 –

occupy Paris. * 1420 – English occupation of Paris begins. * 1429 –

is wounded trying to recapture Paris. * 1436 – The English leave Paris. * 1470 – First printing press installed at the College of Sorbonne. * 1498 –

Louis XII Louis XII (27 June 14621 January 1515), was King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves, he succeeded his 2nd cousin once removed and brother in law at the time ...

enters Paris.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:History Of Paris

Geography

Population

The city walls

Royal Palaces

The Palais de la Cité

The Louvre and the Hotel Royal of Saint-Pol

The Cathedral and the Clergy

The Cathedral of Notre Dame

The School of Notre Dame

The Monasteries

The Bishops of Paris

Religious Orders and the Templars

The University of Paris

Social classes, wealth and poverty

Commerce

The ports

The markets

Artisans and guilds

Money changers and bankers

Governing the city

The police and firemen

Crime and punishment

Daily life

The hours of the day

Food and drink

Festivities and processions

Hospitals

Architecture and urbanism

The birth of Gothic style

The town house

Streets

Bridges

Water

Sewers

Street lighting

The arts

Illuminated manuscripts and painting

Sculpture

Stained glass

Events

Plague, war, and rebellions

The Civil War between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs

The English and Burgundian Occupation

The end of the Middle Ages

Chronology of major events

See also

References

Bibliography