WIn the 10th century Paris was a provincial cathedral city of little political or economic significance, but under the kings of the Capetian 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 became the site of the royal palace and the new cathedral of Notre-Dame, begun in 1163. The Left Bank was occupied by important monasteries, including the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the Abbey of St Genevieve. In the late 1100s, the collection of colleges on the left bank became one of the leading universities in Europe. The Right Bank, 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 and the birthplace of Gothic architecture. Despite civil wars, the plague, and foreign occupation, Paris became the most populous city in the Western world during the Middle Ages.
WPeter Abelard was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian, teacher, musician, composer, poet, and preeminent logician. He is best known in popular culture for his passionate love affair and intense philosophical exchange with his brilliant student and eventual wife, Héloïse d'Argenteuil. He is described as "the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th century" and as arguably the greatest logician of the Middle Ages. "His genius was evident in all he did"; as the first to use 'theology' in its modern sense, he championed "reason in matters of faith", and "seemed larger than life to his contemporaries: his quick wit, sharp tongue, perfect memory, and boundless arrogance made him unbeatable in debate"--"the force of his personality impressed itself vividly on all with whom he came into contact." He is furthermore considered the most significant forerunner of the modern self-reflective autobiographer, paving the way and setting the tone with his publicly distributed letter, "The History of My Calamities", for celebrity tell-alls, perhaps spurred to do so by Augustine's Confessions.
WThe Musée de Cluny, also known as Musée national du Moyen Âge – Thermes et hôtel de Cluny, is a museum of the Middle Ages in Paris, France. It is located in the Latin quarter in the 5th arrondissement of Paris at 6 Place Paul-Painlevé, south of the Boulevard Saint-Germain, between the Boulevard Saint-Michel and the Rue Saint-Jacques.
WThe Condemnations at the medieval University of Paris were enacted to restrict certain teachings as being heretical. These included a number of medieval theological teachings, but most importantly the physical treatises of Aristotle. The investigations of these teachings were conducted by the Bishops of Paris. The Condemnations of 1277 are traditionally linked to an investigation requested by Pope John XXI, although whether he actually supported drawing up a list of condemnations is unclear.
WThe Disputation of Paris, also known as the Trial of the Talmud, took place in 1240 at the court of King Louis IX of France. It followed the work of Nicholas Donin, a Jewish convert to Christianity who translated the Talmud and pressed 35 charges against it to Pope Gregory IX by quoting a series of allegedly blasphemous passages about Jesus, Mary, or Christianity. Four rabbis defended the Talmud against Donin's accusations.
WLe Dit des rues de Paris is a 554-verse poem in octosyllabic rhyming couplets, written by Guillot of Paris and describing the streets of Paris between around 1280 and 1300. It deals with 310 streets, organised into the city's three main districts at that time:to the north on the Rive Droite, the Outre-Grand-Pont district, also known as "la Ville" to the south on the Rive Gauche, the Outre-Petit-Pont district, also known as "l'Université" on the island, the Cité district, cradle of Paris
WThe Edict of Paris was promulgated 18 October 614 in Paris by Chlothar II, the Merovingian king of the Franks. It is one of the most important royal instruments of the Merovingian period in Frankish history and a hallmark in the history of the development of the Frankish monarchy. It is the last of the Merovingian capitularia, a series of legal ordinances governing church and realm.
WThe Hours of Philip the Bold is a late 14th-century illuminated book of hours produced in Paris for Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1363-1404). It contains illustrated calendars, figured initials and 11 large miniatures with ivy borders, following the Paris liturgy. The manuscript has a devotional use. Philip reportedly recited his daily prayers from this manuscript. His hours, which contains almost 200 images, is one of the most worldly manuscripts to survive from the library of the Burgundian Dukes. It is now MS. 3-1954 in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
WThe Palais de la Cité [pa.lɛ də la si.te], located on the Île de la Cité in the Seine River in the centre of Paris, was the residence of the Kings of France from the sixth century until the 14th century. From the 14th century until the French Revolution, it was the headquarters of the French treasury, judicial system and the Parlement of Paris, an assembly of nobles. During the Revolution it served as a courthouse and prison, where Marie Antoinette and other prisoners were held and tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal. The palace was built and rebuilt over the course of six centuries; the site is now largely occupied by the buildings of the 19th-century Palais de Justice, but a few important vestiges remain: the medieval lower hall of the Conciergerie, four towers along the Seine, and, most important, the Sainte-Chapelle, the former chapel of the Palace, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture. Both parts of the Conciergerie and Saint-Chapelle are classified as national historical monuments and can be visited, though most of the Palais de Justice is a working courthouse and is therefore closed to the public.
WThe siege of Paris of 885–886 was part of a Viking raid on the Seine, in the Kingdom of the West Franks. The siege was the most important event of the reign of Charles the Fat, and a turning point in the fortunes of the Carolingian dynasty and the history of France. It also proved for the Franks the strategic importance of Paris at a time when it also was one of the largest cities in West Francia. The siege is the subject of an eyewitness account in the Latin poem Bella Parisiacae urbis of Abbo Cernuus.
WThe Treaty of Paris was a treaty between Louis IX of France and Henry III of England, agreed to on 4 December 1259, ending 100 years of conflicts between the Capetian and Plantagenet dynasties.
WWilliam de Montibus was a theologian and teacher. He travelled to Paris in the 1160s, where he studied under Peter Comestor, eventually opening his own school on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève. He was appointed by Hugh of Lincoln as master of the cathedral school in Lincoln, England in the 1180s, where his lectures drew students from around the country. He was also chancellor of the cathedral by 1194, and remained in both positions until his death in 1213. He was the instructor of Alexander Neckam in Paris, and in Lincoln taught Samuel Presbiter and Richard of Wetheringsett.