Although the Ile de la Cite, which at that date was practically the whole of Paris, had a comparatively large number of build ings, there were few dwellings on the banks of the Seine except some houses round the religious establishments or beside the roads. There were patches of cultivated land, vineyard and meadow amidst a setting of waste ground and forest. In the 9th century the bridge over the wider of the two arms of the river was not situated where the Pont-Notre-Dame now stands, but nearly on the site of the Pont-au-Change. Where it touched the right bank, a road came into existence leading towards the great abbey of Saint-Denis; this later became the rue Saint-Denis. This bridge and the Petit-Pont were protected at each end by a fortified tower, the most important of which was that on the right bank which guarded the entrance to Paris on that side. It was called the Porte de Paris.
During the Norman invasions of the 9th century, the fortified Grand-Pont was of great importance for defensive purposes when Paris was besieged in 885 and 886. The Norman invasions hastened the advent of the feudal system. Moreover, the Medi terranean, which in ancient times had been the means of corn munication between west and east, and where the Byzantine empire held the former place of Rome, was transformed during the 8th century into a Saracen lake from which Christendom was shut off. Communication between different parts of the world became much more restricted, and each feudal domain tended more and more to be its own narrow world. Paris at this time may be regarded as the juxtaposition of the centres of a number of great domains—principally ecclesiastical domains—in fact, a sort of feudal mosaic. But after the accession of the Capetian dynasty in 987, the feudal suzerain was at the same time the king of the country, and the more the monarchy increased in power and extended its influence over France, the more Paris grew in importance.
Growth.—In the 11th century the channels of human inter course began to be opened up once more and to exercise their life-giving influence. The population of Paris increased. The close organization of feudalism began to relax. It was at this time that the earliest of the guilds were formed in Paris, among them that of the river traders who plied up and down the Seine. With the growth of commerce during the irth century there came into being a mercantile quarter near the Porte de Paris, bounded by the latter on the west, Saint-Merri on the north and Saint Gervais on the east. This mercantile quarter might be regarded as deriving its origin from the intersection of the course of the river and the land route represented by the two streets of the rue Saint-Martin and the rue Saint-Denis. In the 12th century
it was surrounded by a rampart, and contained the market, situated on the Greve, where the Hotel de Ville now stands. Louis VI. (1108-37) transferred the market to the site near the rue Saint Denis now occupied by the Halles Centrales. The Grand-Pont, on which the money-changers had their shops, be came the Pont-au-Change in 1142.
Paris now began to grow rapidly. A parish was formed near the priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs; about 1080 the priory church was also the parish church, but early in the following century the functions of parish church were transferred to the neighbouring chapel of Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs. The road to Saint-Denis, of which the street of that name forms part, increased in impor tance ; from early in the 12th century the Lendit fair was held along this road, between Saint-Denis and Paris. The Paris leper hospital, which bore the name of Saint-Lazare, was on this road; its existence is first mentioned in 1122. It occupied the site of the modern prison of the same name. Further to the south the church of the Innocents, which was built about 1150, and the abbey of Saint-Magloire, founded at about the same period, bear witness to the increasing population in the neighbourhood of Louis VI.'s new market. To the east, a new centre of activity was created towards the end of the 12th century by the foundation of the Temple, south of the site now occupied by the place de la Republique. The Couture du Temple is mentioned in 1184, and the Ville Neuve du Temple came into existence in the following century. The church of Saint-Paul, near the corner of the street of that name and the rue Saint-Antoine, is first mentioned in 1136, and the township (bourg) of Saint-Paul came into being in the next century. Rural settlements gathered round the churches and abbeys ; for example the small village of La Villette Saint-Ladre grew up in the second half of the 12th century on the land of the Paris leper hospital. This is the origin of the modern district of La Villette. About the middle of the century the land which lies beyond where the chief boulevards now are and almost as far as Chaillot, which had been used as public pasturage, was brought under cultivation and formed the beginning of the ring of vegetable gardens which surrounds Paris, but has been driven farther and farther out with the growth of the city. By about 1110 there was a township around the church of Saint Germain-l'Auxerrois ; like the church itself, it was dependent on the bishop of Paris. About zoo years later there was in addition to the old Bourg de Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois or Bourg de l'Eveque, prolonged towards the west, a new Bourg de l'Eveque.