Paris of the 12th century was one of the great stopping places of history. The city had been settled by a Celtic tribe, the Parisii in the 3rd century BC. And the Parisii were conquered by the Romans who in 52 BC established a Gallo-Roman settlement in and around the Ile de la Cite known as Lutetia Parisiorum, or the place near a swamp of the tribe known as the Parisii. Here we see an image of what Paris might've looked like under Roman rule. Those of you who've been to Paris might recognize the Roman Arena which is still standing, the Roman Thermal Baths which are now part of the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages in Paris's 5th arrondissement, and the Ile de la Cité on which the Cathedral of Notre Dame will be built some 10 centuries later. In this rendering, we still see the vestiges of swamps along what is now Paris's left bank. But before we get to the building of cathedrals, let's back up a little to the early history of Paris which was not always as peaceful as it is today or even as it was in the 12th century. France was christianized in the 3rd century of the Christian era and occupied by the Germanic King Clovis who at the urging of his wife Clotilde converted to Christianity in 496. Clovis made Paris his capital in 508. In the 2nd half of the 8th century, Charles the Great, or Charlemagne whom we shall encounter when we read the Song of Roland had managed to unite all of Europe under his rule and maintain relative peace throughout his empire. But when he died in 814 Europe found itself vulnerable to invasions. Muslims swept in from the Mediterranean, Magyars from the East, and Vikings or Norsemen from Scandinavia. In 845 Paris was attacked by Viking invaders who sailed their fierce long ships up to Sienne. Axe bearing warriors from the North scaled the city walls and looted and burned what they could. Charlemagne's grandson Charles the Bald paid £7,000 tribute to keep the Viking raiders at bay, but the same thing happened in 876 and again in 885. Finally, the French King Charles the Simple concluded a peace treaty with the Viking leader Rollo in the year 911 and the decades of peace which grew into centuries of peace meant that Paris prospered as it never could have in the chaos following Charlemagne's death. The population of this city grew from an estimated 20,000 at the low point of the Viking raids to an estimated 110,000 in the year 1200 to some 250,000 at the time of the Black Death of 1348, which may have killed as many as 800 people a day. This was also a period of tremendous economic growth with the opening of long-range trade routes between the Middle East and the North, between England, the Low Countries, Italy, and France, all of which accompanied the growth in population. And it was a period in which the rural economy of what the historian Marc Bloch called the First Feudal Age gave way to a rise of cities, with all that cities imply by way of money, commerce, markets, and judicial institutions. New urban social arrangements like the municipal government of the commune, artisan guilds and corporations, universities, and among the most impressive and enduring architectural monuments of the world, Gothic cathedrals.
