Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
However, the militaristic rulers of the succeeding Carolingian dynasty, beginning with
Charles 'the Hammer' Martel (688-741), were almost permanently away fighting wars in
the east, and Paris languished, controlled mostly by its counts. When Charles Martel's
grandson, Charlemagne (768-814), moved his capital to Aix-la-Chapelle (today's Aachen in
Germany), Paris' fate was sealed. Basically a group of separate villages with its centre on
the Ile de la Cité, Paris was badly defended throughout the second half of the 9th century
and was raided incessantly by Vikings, who eventually established control over northern and
northwestern France.
The Paris counts, whose powers had grown as the Carolingians feuded among them-
selves, elected one of their own, Hugh Capet, as king at Senlis in 987. He made Paris the
royal seat and lived in the renovated palace of the Roman governor on the Île de la Cité (site
of the present Palais de Justice). Under the 800 years of Capetian rule that followed, Paris
prospered as a centre of politics, commerce, trade, religion and culture.
The city's strategic riverside position ensured its importance throughout the Middle Ages.
The first guilds were created in the 11th century, and in the mid-12th century the ship mer-
chants' guild bought the principal river port, by today's Hôtel de Ville (City Hall), from the
crown. Frenetic building marked the 12th and 13th centuries. The Basilique de St-Denis was
commissioned in 1136 and less than three decades later, work started on Notre Dame. Dur-
ing the reign of Philippe-Auguste (r 1180-1223), the city wall was expanded and fortified
with 25 gates and hundreds of protective towers.
The swampy Marais was drained for agricultural use and settlement, prompting the even-
tual need for the food markets at Les Halles in 1183 and the Louvre as a riverside fortress in
the 13th century. In a bid to resolve ghastly traffic congestion and stinking excrement (by
1200 the city had a population of 200,000), Philippe-Auguste paved four of Paris' main
streets with metre-square sandstone blocks. Meanwhile, the Left Bank - particularly in the
Latin Quarter - developed as a centre of European learning and erudition. Ill-fated lovers Pi-
erre Abélard and Héloïse penned the finest poetry of the age and treatises on philosophy,
Thomas Aquinas taught at the new university, and the Sorbonne opened its scholarly doors.
Gallo-Roman Paris (Lutetia) features in several classic Asterix adventures, including As-
terix and the Golden Sickle.
In 1292 the medieval city of Paris counted 352 streets, 10 squares and 11 crossroads.
