ORLÉANS
. Ancient city situated at the crossing of the Loire closest to the Seine, the place called
Cenabum was the chief trading post of the ancient Carnutes. By the early 4th century, it
had become the Roman Aurelium, the seat of a Christian bishop. Subjected to the full
impact of the Germanic invasions because of its location, Orléans was defended against
Attila in 451 by Aetius and by its bishop, St. Aignan. Clovis I took the town in 498 and
convened the first Gallic council of the church there in 511. It became the capital of one
of the Merovingian successor states, had an important colony of Syrians and Jews, and
was the site of a series of church councils.
Talented bishops, such as Jonas and the poet Theodulf, made the Orléanais a center of
the Carolingian renaissance, to which the oratory of Germigny-des-Prés still bears
witness. The town’s site on the Loire made Orléans vulnerable to Viking raids, against
which it found defenders in the Robertian family. With the accession of Hugh Capet as
king in 987, Orléans became a royal city and its bishop, Arnulf, proved one of the
Capetians’ chief supporters.
Under the first four Capetians, Orléans rivaled Paris as a center of royal government.
Philip I (r. 1060–1108) established a royal mint there. The seat of a royal prévôté and
then a bailliage, Orléans received a communal charter in 1137. A commercial crossroads,
it witnessed an outbreak of heresy in 1022 and developed as a distinguished center for the
study of law. Granted university status in 1306 by Pope Clement V, its school attracted
distinguished scholars from all over Europe.
After 1344, Orléans became the apanage of a series of royal cadets, first Philip (d.
1375), the younger son of Philip VI, and then (after 1392) Louis, the brother of Charles
VI. Until his assassination in 1407, Louis led the anti-Burgundian faction in French
politics later known as the Armagnacs. His son Charles d’Orléans, the noted poet, was
taken at Agincourt in 1415 and remained a captive in England until 1440. When the
English attacked his lands, they were defended by his illegitimate half-brother Jean,
comte de Dunois, and Jeanne d’Arc first achieved fame when the English had to raise the
siege of Orléans in 1429. Charles d’Orléans lived to sire a son, Louis, who became king
of France in 1498.
Orléans, Sainte-Croix, 10th-century
plan and current plan. After Nivet.
As a result of the Hundred Years’ War and the Wars of Religion, little remains of
Orléans’ medieval architectural heritage. The cathedral of Sainte-Croix is almost entirely
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1292