Editing History of Paris (section)

==Middle Ages (12th–15th centuries)==
{{main article|Paris in the Middle Ages}}
[[File:Le siège de Paris en 1429 par Jeanne d'Arc - Martial.jpg|thumb|300px|[[Joan of Arc]] tries unsuccessfully to liberate Paris (1429).]]
[[File:Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry octobre.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The fortress of the [[Louvre]] as it appeared in this 15th-century manuscript illumination ''Les [[Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry]]'', month of October]]
[[File:Gasparino.jpg|thumb|right|200px|A page of the first book printed in France (1470): the ''Epistolae'' ("Letters") by [[Gasparinus de Bergamo]] (Gasparino da Barzizza).]]
[[File:Sainte Chapelle - Upper level 1.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The [[Sainte-Chapelle]], the chapel of the former royal palace on the Île de la Cité, flooded by light through the stained glass windows, is a masterpiece of the Gothic style. (13th century)]] 	
[[File:Paris 2012-aout-0006-2-Hotel-de-Cluny.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The [[Hôtel de Cluny]] (1485–1510), the former residence of the abbots of the Cluny monastery, is now the [[Musée national du Moyen Age|Museum of the Middle Ages]].]]

At the beginning of the 12th century, the French kings of the Capetian dynasty controlled little more than Paris and the surrounding region, but they did their best to build up Paris as the political, economic, religious and cultural capital of France.{{sfn|Lawrence|Gondrand|2010|p=27}} The distinctive character of the city's districts continued to emerge at this time. The Île de la Cité was the site of the royal palace, and construction of the new Cathedral of [[Notre-Dame de Paris]] began in 1163.<ref name="Sarmant pp. 28-29">Sarmant, ''History of Paris'', pp. 28–29.</ref>

The [[Rive Gauche|Left Bank]] (south of the Seine) was the site of the new [[University of Paris]] established by the Church and royal court to train scholars in theology, mathematics and law, and the two great monasteries of Paris: the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the Abbey of Saint Geneviève.<ref name=ParisDigest>{{Cite web |url=https://www.parisdigest.com/monument/pantheon.htm |title=Le Panthéon in Paris |year=2020 |publisher=Paris Digest |access-date=2020-07-27}}</ref><ref name="Sarmant pp. 28-29" />{{sfn|Lawrence|Gondrand|2010|p=27}} The [[Rive Droite|Right Bank]] (north of the Seine) became the centre of commerce and finance, where the port, the central market, workshops and the houses of merchants were located. A league of merchants, the ''Hanse parisienne'', was established and quickly became a powerful force in the city's affairs.

===Royal palace and the Louvre===
At the beginning of the Middle Ages, the royal residence was on the Île de la Cité. Between 1190 and 1202, King [[Philip II of France|Philip II]] built the massive fortress of the [[Louvre Palace|Louvre]], which was designed to protect the Right Bank against an English attack from Normandy.

Before he departed for the [[Third Crusade]], Philip II began construction of new fortifications for the city. He built a stone wall on the Left Bank, with thirty round towers. On the Right Bank, the wall extended for 2.8 kilometers, with forty towers to protect the new neighbourhoods of the growing medieval city. His third great project was to pave the mud streets with stone. Over the Seine, he also rebuilt two wooden bridges in stone, the [[Petit-Pont]] and [[Pont Notre-Dame|Grand-Pont]], and he began construction of a covered market, [[Les Halles]].<ref name="Sarmant, Thierry 2012 pp. 36-40">Sarmant, Thierry, ''Histoire de Paris'' (2012), pp. 36–40.</ref>

King [[Philip IV of France|Philip IV]] (r. 1285-1314) reconstructed the royal residence on the Île de la Cité, transforming it into a palace. Two of the great ceremonial halls still remain within the structure of the [[Palais de Justice, Paris|Palais de Justice]]. He also built a more sinister structure, the [[Gibbet of Montfaucon]], where the corpses of executed criminals were displayed. On 13 October 1307, he used his royal power to arrest the members of the [[Knights Templar]], who, he felt, had grown too powerful, and on 18 March 1314, he had the Grand Master of the Order, [[Jacques de Molay]], [[Death by burning|burned at the stake]].<ref>Sarmant, Thierry, ''Histoire de Paris'', pp. 43–44.</ref>

Between 1356 and 1383, King [[Charles V of France|Charles V]] built a new wall of fortifications around the city. He also built the [[Bastille]], a large fortress guarding the [[Porte Saint-Antoine]] at the eastern end of Paris, and an imposing new fortress at [[Vincennes]], east of city.<ref name="Sarmant, Thierry 2012 p. 46"/> Charles V moved his official residence from the Île de la Cité to the Louvre, but preferred to live in the [[Hôtel Saint-Pol]].

===Saint-Denis, Notre-Dame and the birth of the Gothic style===
The flourishing of religious architecture in Paris was largely the work of [[Suger]], the abbot of Saint-Denis from 1122 to 1151 and an advisor to Kings [[Louis VI of France|Louis VI]] and [[Louis VII of France|Louis VII]]. He rebuilt the old Carolingian [[Basilica of Saint Denis]], creating a dramatic wall of stained glass windows that flooded the church with light. This style, which later was named [[Gothic style|Gothic]], was copied by other Paris churches and quickly spread to England and Germany.<ref name="Sarmant, Thierry, 2012, p. 29"/><ref>Jean Bony, "French Influences on the Origins of English Gothic Architecture," ''Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes'' (1949) 12:1-15 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/750252 in JSTOR.]</ref> An even more ambitious building project, a new cathedral for Paris, was begun by bishop [[Maurice de Sully]] in about 1160 and continued for two centuries. The first stone of the [[choir (architecture)|choir]] of the cathedral of [[Notre Dame de Paris]] was laid in 1163, and the altar was consecrated in 1182.<ref>Sarmant, Thierry, ''Histoire de Paris'' (2012), p. 33.</ref><ref>Caroline Bruzelius, "The Construction of Notre-Dame in Paris." ''Art Bulletin'' (1987): 540–569 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3050998 in JSTOR].</ref>

In the 13th century, King [[Louis IX of France|Louis IX]] (r. 1226–1270), known to history as "Saint Louis", built the [[Sainte-Chapelle]], a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, especially to house relics from the [[Crucifixion of Jesus|crucifixion of Christ]]. Built between 1241 and 1248, it has the oldest stained glass windows preserved in Paris. At the same time that the Saint-Chapelle was built, the great stained glass [[rose window]]s were added to the [[transept]] of the cathedral.<ref name="Sarmant, Thierry 2012 pp. 36-40" />

===University===
Under Kings Louis VI and Louis VII, Paris became one of the principal centers of learning in Europe. Students, scholars and monks flocked to the city from England, Germany and Italy. They studied first in the different schools attached to Notre-Dame and the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The most famous teacher was [[Pierre Abelard]], who taught five thousand students at the [[Montagne Sainte-Geneviève]]. The [[University of Paris]] was originally organised in the mid-12th century.<ref name="Combeau pp. 25-25">Combeau, Yvan, ''Histoire de Paris'', pp. 25–26.</ref>

Some twenty thousand students lived on the Left Bank, which became known as the [[Latin Quarter, Paris|Latin Quarter]], because Latin was the language of instruction and the common language in which the foreign students could converse. In 1257, the chaplain of Louis IX, [[Robert de Sorbon]], opened the oldest and most famous College of the University, which was later named after him, the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]].<ref name="Combeau pp. 25-25" /> From the 13th to the 15th century, the University of Paris was the most important school of Roman Catholic theology in western Europe. Its teachers included [[Roger Bacon]] from England, Saint [[Thomas Aquinas]] from Italy, and Saint [[Bonaventure]] from Germany.{{sfn|Lawrence|Gondrand|2010|p=27}}<ref name="Sarmant, Thierry, 2012, p. 29">Sarmant, Thierry, ''Histoire de Paris'' (2012), p. 29.</ref>

===Paris merchants===
Beginning in the 11th century, Paris had been governed by a [[Provost (civil)|Royal Provost]], appointed by the king, who lived in the fortress of [[Grand Châtelet]]. Saint Louis created a new position, the Provost of the Merchants, to share authority with the Royal Provost and recognize the growing power and wealth of the merchants of Paris. Saint Louis also created the first municipal council of Paris, with twenty-four members.

In 1328, Paris's population was about 200,000, which made it the most populous city in Europe. With the growth in population came growing social tensions; the first riots took place in December 1306 against the Provost of the Merchants, who was accused of raising rents. The houses of many merchants were burned, and twenty-eight rioters were hanged. In January 1357, [[Étienne Marcel]], the Provost of Paris, led a merchants' revolt using violence in a bid to curb the power of the monarchy and obtain privileges for the city and the [[French States-General|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 was killed.<ref name="Sarmant, Thierry 2012 pp. 44-45">Sarmant, Thierry, ''Histoire de Paris'' (2012), pp. 44–45.</ref>

===Plague and war===
[[File:Plan restitué de Paris en 1380 - ALPAGE.svg|300px|thumb|A recreated map of Paris in 1380]]

In the mid-14th century, Paris was struck by two great catastrophes: the [[bubonic plague]] and the [[Hundred Years' War]]. 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 1360–1361, 1363, and 1366–1368.{{sfn|Byrne|2012|p=259}}<ref name="Sarmant, Thierry 2012 p. 46">Sarmant, Thierry, ''Histoire de Paris'' (2012), p. 46.</ref> There were at least 36 occasions of plague in the city between 1348 and 1480.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Colin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zwlQyQ_WAtYC |title=Paris: Biography of a City |date=2006-04-06 |publisher=Penguin Adult |isbn=978-0-14-028292-4 |pages=82 |language=en}}</ref> During the 16th and 17th centuries, plague visited the city almost one year out of three.{{sfn|Harding|2002|p=25}} Other diseases that ravaged Paris included the [[mumps]] in 1414, [[scarlet fever]] in 1418 and [[smallpox]] in 1433 and 1438.<ref name=":0" />

The war was even more catastrophic. Beginning in 1346, the English army of King [[Edward III]] pillaged the countryside outside the walls of Paris. Ten years later, when King [[John II of France|John II]] was captured by the English at the [[Battle of Poitiers]], disbanded groups of [[Routiers|mercenary soldiers]] looted and ravaged the surroundings of Paris. An English army and its allies from the [[Duchy of Burgundy]] invaded Paris during the night of 28–29 May 1418. Beginning in 1422, the north of France was ruled by [[John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford]], the [[regent]] for the infant King [[Henry VI of England]], who was resident in Paris while King [[Charles VII of France]] only ruled France south of the Loire River. During her unsuccessful attempt at taking Paris on 8 September 1429, [[Joan of Arc]] was wounded just outside the [[Porte Saint-Honoré]], the westernmost fortified entrance of the [[Wall of Charles V]].<ref name="Sarmant, Thierry 2012 p. 46"/>

Due to the wars of [[Henry V of England|Henry V]] on France, Paris fell to the English between 1420 and 1436; the child king Henry VI was crowned the king of France there in 1431.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Dan |url= |title=The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |date=2012-05-10 |isbn=978-0-00-745749-6 |language=en}}</ref> When the English left Paris in 1436, Charles VII was finally able to return. Many areas of the capital of his kingdom were in ruins, and a hundred thousand of its inhabitants, half the population, had left the city. When Paris was again the capital of France, the succeeding monarchs chose to live in the [[Loire Valley]] and visited Paris only on special occasions.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://articles.cnn.com/2008-03-07/travel/loire.valley_1_chenonceau-chateaux-loire-valley?_s=PM:TRAVEL |title=Loire Valley: Land of a thousand chateaux |last1=Steves |first1=Rick |date=7 March 2007 |publisher=CNN |access-date=4 January 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120229042729/http://articles.cnn.com/2008-03-07/travel/loire.valley_1_chenonceau-chateaux-loire-valley?_s=PM%3ATRAVEL |archive-date=29 February 2012 }}</ref> King [[Francis I of France|Francis I]] finally returned the royal residence to Paris in 1528.