City Guide

By around 2000 B.C., the island served as the fortified headquarters of the Parisii tribe, who called it Lutétia. The two wooden bridges connecting the island to the river's left and right banks were among the region's most strategically important, and the settlement attracted the attention of the Roman Empire. In his Commentaries, Julius Caesar described his conquest of Lutétia, recounting how its bridges were burned during the Gallic War of 52 B.C. and how the town on the island was pillaged, sacked, and transformed into a Roman-controlled stronghold.

Within a century, Lutétia became a full-fledged Roman town, and some of the inhabitants abandoned the frequently flooded island in favor of higher ground on what is today the Left Bank. By A.D. 200, barbarian invasions threatened the stability of Roman Gaul, and the populace from the surrounding hills flocked to the island's fortified safety. Over the next 50 years, a Christian community gained a foothold there. According to legend, St. Denis served as the city's first bishop (around 250). By this time the Roman Empire's political power had begun to wane in the region, and the cultural and religious attachment of the community to the Christian bishops of Rome grew even stronger.

During the 400s, with the decline of the Roman armies, Germanic tribes from the east (the Salian Franks) were able to invade the island, founding a Frankish dynasty and prompting a Frankish-Latin fusion in the burgeoning town. The first of these Frankish kings, Clovis (466-511), founder of the Merovingian dynasty, embraced Christianity as his tribe's religion and spearheaded an explicit rejection of Roman cultural imperialism by encouraging the adoption of Parisii place names like "Paris," which came into common usage during this time.

The Merovingians were replaced by the Carolingians, whose heyday began with Charlemagne's coronation in 800. The Carolingian Empire sprawled over western Germany and eastern France, but Paris was never its capital. The city remained a commercial and religious center, sacred to the memory of St. Geneviève, who reputedly protected Paris when the Huns attacked it in the final days of the Roman Empire. The Carolingians came to an end in 987, when the empire fragmented because of the growing regional, political, and linguistic divisions between what would become modern France and modern Germany. Paris became the seat of a new dynasty, the Capetians, whose kings ruled France throughout the Middle Ages. Hugh Capet (938-996), the first of this line, ruled as comte de Paris and duc de France from 987 to 996.

City Guide

Paris France Tourism: In Depth

In Depth

Paris Travel & Vacation Deals

Paris Travel Deals