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0 BCE-400CE- Paris-
The centre of the world
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| Paris is located some 233 miles (375 kilometres) upstream from the river's mouth on the English Channel. The modern city has spread from the island (the Île de la Cité) and far beyond both banks of the Seine. The City of Paris itself covers an area of 41 square miles (105 square kilometres); the Greater Paris conurbation, formed of suburbs and other built-up areas, extends around it in all directions to cover approximately 890 square miles. |
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| Paris was in existence by the end of the 3rd century BC as a settlement on an island, the modern Île de la Cité, in the Seine River and was inhabited by a Gallic tribe known as the Parisii. The first recorded name for the settlement was Lutetia (Latin: “Midwater-Dwelling”). When the Romans arrived, the Parisii were sufficiently organized and wealthy to have their own gold coinage. Julius Caesar wrote in his Commentaries (52 BC) that the inhabitants burned their town rather than surrender it to the Romans. In the 1st century AD Lutetia grew as a Roman town and spread to the left bank of the Seine. The straight streets and the public buildings in thislocale were characteristically Roman, including a forum, several baths, and an amphitheatre. |
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| A series of barbarian invasions began in the late 2nd century. The town on the left bank was destroyed by the mid-3rd century, and the inhabitants took refuge on the island, around which they built a thick stone wall. From the early 4th century the place became known as Paris. |
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| By this time, Christianity seems to have spread to Paris. A 10th-century sacramentary cites St. Denis (Latin Dionysius) as having been the first bishop of Paris, in about AD 250. A graveyard excavated near the Carrefour des Gobelins showsthat there was a Christian community in very early times on the banks of the Bièvre (a left-bank tributary of the Seine); but it was probably under St. Marcel, the ninth bishop (c. 360–436), that the first Christian church, a wooden structure, was built on the island. |
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| By the end of the 5th century, the Salian Franks, under Clovis, had captured Paris from the Gauls, making it their own capital. It remained the capital until the end of Chilperic's reign in 584, but succeeding Merovingians carriedthe crown elsewhere. Charlemagne's dynasty, the Carolingians, tended to leave the city in the charge of the counts of Paris, who in many cases had less control over administration than did the bishops. After the election of Hugh Capet, a count of Paris, to the throne in 987, Paris, as a Capetian capital, became more important. |
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| The population and commerce of Paris increased with the gradual return of political stability and public order under theCapetian kings. The maintenance of order was entrusted to a representative of the king, the provost of Paris (prévôt de Paris), first mentioned in 1050. In the 11th century the first guilds were formed, among them the butchers' guild and the river-merchants' guild, or marchandise de l'eau. In 1141 the crown sold the principal port (near the Hôtel de Ville) to the marchandise, whose ship-blazoned arms eventually were adopted as those of Paris. In 1171 Louis VII gave the marchandise a charter confirming its “ancient right” to a monopoly of river trade. |
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| During the reign of Philip II (1179–1223), Paris was extensively improved. Streets were paved, the city wall was enlarged, and a number of new towns were enfranchised. In 1190, when Philip II went on a crusade for a year, he entrusted the city's administration not to the provost but to the guild. In 1220 the crown ceded one of its own precious rights to the townsmen—the right to collect duty on incominggoods. The merchants were also made responsible for maintaining fair weights and measures. The King's formal recognition of the University of Paris in 1200 was also a recognition of the natural division of Paris into three parts. On the Right Bank were the mercantile quarters, on the island was the cité, and the Left Bank contained the university and academic quarters. Numerous colleges were also founded, including the Sorbonne (about 1257). | ||
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