page_title: Paris in the Middle Ages
section_title: Commerce
hierarchical_section_title: Paris in the Middle Ages / Commerce
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Écusson de la ville de Paris.
context_page_description: In 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.
context_section_description: Commerce was a major source of the wealth and influence of Paris in the Middle Ages. Even before the Roman conquest of Gaul, the first inhabitants of the city, the Parisii, had traded with cities as far away as Spain and Eastern Europe and had minted their own coins for this purpose. In the Gallo-Roman town of Lutetia, the boatmen dedicated a column to the god Mercury that was found during excavations under the choir of Notre Dame. In 1121, during the reign of Louis VI, the king accorded to the league of boatmen of Paris a fee of sixty centimes for each boatload of wine that arrived in the city during the harvest. In 1170, Louis VII extended the privileges of the river merchants even further; only the boatmen of Paris were allowed to conduct commerce on the river between the bridge of Mantes and the two bridges of Paris; the cargoes of other boats would be confiscated. This was the beginning of the close association between the merchants and the king. The arrangement with the river merchants coincided with a great expansion of commerce and increase in the population on the Right Bank of the city.
  The large monasteries also played an important role in the growth of commerce in the Middle Ages by holding large fairs that attracted merchants from as far away as Saxony and Italy. The Abbey of Saint Denis had been holding a large annual fair since the seventh century; the fair of Saint-Mathias dated to the 8th century; The Lenit Fair appeared in the 10th century, and the Fair of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres began in the 12th century.
caption: The coat of arms of the league of Paris river merchants in the Middle Ages became the emblem of the city of Paris
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