TOURS, a town of France, capital of the department of Indre-et-Loire, 145 m. S. W. of Paris by rail. Pop. (1931) 74,183.
Tours (see TOURAINE), under the Gauls the capital of the Turones or Turons, originally stood on the right bank of the Loire, a little above the village of St. Symphorien. At first called Altionos, the town was afterwards known as Caesarodunum. The Romans removed the town from the hill where it originally stood to the left bank of the river.
Tours became Christian about 25o through the preaching of Gatien, who founded the bishopric. The first cathedral was built oo years later by St. Litorius. The bishopric became an arch bishopric when Gratian made Tours the capital of Lugdunensis Tertia, though the bishops did not adopt the title of archbishop till the 9th century. In the 5th century the official name of Caesarodunum was changed to Civitas Turonorum. St. Martin, the apostle of the Gauls, was bishop of Tours in the 4th century.
Affiliated to the Armorican confederation in 435, the town fell to the Visigoths in 473. It became part of the Frankish domin ions under Clovis. At the end of the 6th century the bishopric was held by St. Gregory of Tours. Tours grew rapidly in pros perity under the Merovingians, but abuse of the right of sanctuary led to great disorder. Charlemagne re-established discipline in the disorganized monastery and set over it the learned Alcuin, who established one of the oldest public schools of philosophy and theology. The arts flourished at Tours in the middle ages and the town was the centre of Poitevin Romanesque school of architecture. The abbey was made into a collegiate church in the nth century, and was for a time affiliated to Cluny, but soon came under the direct rule of Rome, and for long had bishops of its own. The suburb in which the monastery was situated became important under the name of Martinopolis. The Normans pil laged it in 853 and 9o3. Walls were erected from 906 to 91o, and the name was changed to that of Chateauneuf.
In the 14th century Tours was united to Chateauneuf within a common wall, of which a round tower, the Tour de Guise, remains, and both towns were put under the same administration. The numerous and long-continued visits of Charles VII., Louis XI., who established the silk-industry, and Charles VIII. during the 15th century favoured commerce and industry. In 1562 Tours suffered from the violence of both Protestants and Catholics.
In the 17th and 18th centuries it was the capital of the gov ernment of Touraine. Its manufactures, of which silk weaving
was the chief, suffered from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). In 1772 its mint, whence were issued the "livres" of Tours, was suppressed. During the Revolution the town formed a base of operations of the Republicans against the Vendeans.
Tours lies on a flat tongue of land between Loire and Cher just above their junction. The right bank of the Loire is bordered by hills at the foot of which lie St. Cyr and St. Symphorien. The river is crossed by two suspension bridges.
St. Gatien, the cathedral of Tours, dates from the 12th to the i6th centuries. The lower portions of the west towers belong to the 12th century, the choir to the 13th century; the transept and east bays of the nave to the 54th, the remaining bays, a cloister on the north, and the façade, decorated in the Flamboyant style, to the 15th and i6th centuries, the upper part of the towers being in the Renaissance style of the 16th century. In the choir there is fine 13th century stained glass. The i6th century tomb of the children of Charles VIII., is attributed to the brothers Juste. The square tower of the church of St. Julien is Romanesque, the rest being in the early Gothic style of the 13th century, with the exception of two apses added in the i6th century. Two towers and a Renaissance cloister are the chief remains of the cele brated basilica of St. Martin. Two other churches are Notre Dame la Riche, originally built in the 13th century, rebuilt in the i6th, and magnificently restored in the 19th century; and St. Saturnin of the 15th century. Of the old houses of Tours the hotel Gouin and that wrongly known as the house of Tristan l'Hermite (both of the 55th century) are the best known. Tours has a valuable library, including among its mss. a gospel of the 8th century on which the kings of France took oath as honorary canons of the church of St. Martin. Balzac was a native of Tours. Tours is the seat of an archbishop, a prefect, and a court of assizes, and headquarters of the IX. Army Corps, and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators and a chamber of commerce.
There are silk factories and important printing works, steel works, iron and tirr foundries and factories for automobiles, ma chinery, oil, cement, stained glass, boots and shoes, porcelain and other goods. A considerable trade is carried on in the wine of the district and in brandy, dried fruits and confectionery.