Reims

Reims is a French city and commune in the Marne department of the Grand Est region. It is the largest city in its department, although it is not the capital.

Toponymy

The place name in French is Reims (pronounced: /ʁɛ̃s/), Rheims in medieval writing.

Geography

It is located in northeastern France, about 129 km east of Paris, on a plain on the right bank of the Vesle, a tributary of the Aisne, and on the channel that leads the Aisne to the Marne. To the south and west rises the Montagne de Reims, and in the same direction are the Champagne vineyards. The area of the commune is 47.02 km².

History

Antiquity

Mars Gate, which belongs to the centuryIII or IV"

Before the Roman conquest of northern Gaul, Reims was the capital of the Oar tribe, founded around 80 BC. C. During the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar (58-51 BC), the oars allied themselves with the Romans, and through their fidelity throughout several Gallic insurrections they secured the special favor of power imperial. At the height of Roman times the city had a population of between 30,000 and 50,000, or perhaps as high as 100,000. Reims was first called Durocórtoro Durocortorum in Latin, which according to a hypothesis derives from a Gallic name meaning "gate of Cortoro". The city takes its name from the tribe of the oars (Rēmi or Rhēmi). The modern French name derives of the accusative case of the latter, Rēmos.

In 254 the limes of Germania Superior fell, and around the year 259 there was the arrival of important barbarian contingents in Belgium. Christianity was established in the city by the year 260, the period in which Saint Sixtus of Reims founded the Diocese of Reims (which would become an archdiocese around 750). Between 268 and 278 the interior of Gaul was sacked and some groups reached Hispania. Around the year 278, the border was reestablished by the emperor Probus.

It was in that context, at the end of the III century or beginning of the IV, when the walls were built around Reims, supported by the four triumphal arches built on the cardo and the decumanus, arches that are thus converted into gates of the wall. Of these, the gate of Mars (porte de Mars or porte Mars) is preserved today, so called because it is located near a temple of Mars. The walls were reinforced by a slope about 10 meters wide and a moat. The construction of such a defensive system required the demolition of several buildings, both to open space and to obtain materials.

Sarcophagus de Jovino (Museo de Saint-Remi)

The consul Jovino, an influential supporter of the new faith, repulsed the Alemanni who invaded Champagne in 336. A first cathedral was built by Bishop Nicasio in the first half of the century V on the old Gallo-Roman baths. This building was already dedicated to the Holy Virgin. The Vandals took the city in 406 and killed Bishop Nicasios; and in 451 Attila the Hun overran Rheims with fire and sword. It was in that primitive cathedral where the baptism of Clovis I by Bishop Remigio took place in the year 498.

Middle Ages

Master of Saint Gilles, The baptism of Clodoveo (details) c.1500 (National Art Gallery)

In 496—ten years after Clovis, King of the Salian Franks, won his victory at Soissons (486)—Remigius, the Bishop of Reims, baptized him using oil from the sacred vial—supposedly brought down from heaven by a dove for the baptism of Clovis and later kept in the abbey of San Remigio. For centuries the events of the coronation of Clovis I became a symbol used by the monarchy to claim the divine right to reign.

Saint Remigio, Bishop of Reims, praying to Clodoveo the restitution of the Holy Vaso taken by the Franks in the pillage of Soissons. — The costumes are the own of the Borgoña court in the centuryXV. — Facsimile of a miniature in a manuscript of the History of the Emperors (Arsenal Library).

Forward to the VI and VII the city walls protected an area of 60 hectares.

In Reims there were meetings between Pope Stephen II (752-757) with Pepin the Short, and Pope Leo III (795-816) with Charlemagne (d. 814). In 816 Ludovico Pius, son of Charlemagne, chose Reims for his consecration as emperor by Pope Stephen IV. The importance that this gives to the city led Archbishop Ebón (816-835) to start the works of a new cathedral in that same year 816 to replace the building of the V. Stones from the walls were used for the construction, showing the feeling of security that existed at the time. It was continued by Archbishop Hincmaro (845-882) and consecrated in 862. Flodoardo describes it as an imposing building, with a marble pavement, painted vaults, stained glass windows, a pediment adorned with mosaics, and a lead ceiling.

But the Norman attacks made it necessary to restore the walls between 883 and 887, for which the stones of a church destroyed by the Normans were also used. The fortified enclosure continued to cover some 60 hectares.

King Louis IV gave the city and county of Reims to Archbishop Artald in 940. King Louis VII (r. 1137-1180) gave the title of duke and peer to William of Champagne, archbishop from 1176 to 1202, and the Archbishops of Reims gained precedence over the other ecclesiastical peers of the realm.

By the X century, Reims had become a center of intellectual culture. Archbishop Adalberón (held office from 969 to 988), seconded by the monk Gerberto (later, from 999 to 1003, Pope Silvestre II), founded schools that taught the classic "liberal arts." Adalberon also played a leading role in the dynastic revolution that raised the Capetian dynasty to the throne, replacing the Carolingians.

Archbishops retained the important prerogative of consecrating the kings of France – a privilege they exercised (except in a few cases) from the time of Philip II Augustus (anointed 1179, reigned 1180-1223) until the of Carlos X (anointed in 1825). The Palace of Tau, built between 1498 and 1509 and partly rebuilt in 1675, would later serve as the archiepiscopal palace and as the residence of the kings of France on the occasion of their consecrations, holding royal banquets in the Salle du Tau.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Juana de Arco at the coronation of Carlos VII, 1854 (Louvre)

Louis VII granted the city a communal charter in 1139. By virtue of the Treaty of Troyes (1420) he ceded it to the English, who had made a futile attempt to take it by siege in 1360; but French patriots drove them out when approached by Joan of Arc, who in 1429 had Charles VII consecrated in the cathedral. Louis XI cruelly suppressed a revolt in Reims in 1461, motivated by the tax on salt.

The New Testament of the Douay-Rheims Bible was printed in Reims in 1582.

During the religious wars in France the city aligned itself with the Catholic League (1585), but submitted to King Henry IV after the Battle of Ivry (1590). At about the same time, the English College had been "at Reims for some years".

Modern Age

In Reims, Saint John Baptist de La Salle, founder of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, was born on April 30, 1651. The city was affected by an epidemic in 1635, and again in 1668, followed by typhus in 1693-1694. The construction of the Hôtel de Ville dates back to the same century.

The Place Royale was built in the 18th century century.

Contemporary Age

Some of the massacres of September 1792 took place in Reims.

In the invasions of the Sixth Coalition War in 1814, the Allied anti-Napoleonic armies took and retook Reims. "In 1852, the Eastern Railways completed the main Paris-Strasbourg line with a branch line to Reims and Metz." In 1870-1871, during the Franco-Prussian War, the victorious Germans made it the seat of a governor-general and he impoverished it with extensive seizures. In 1874 construction of a chain of separate forts began nearby, the French Army having selected Reims as one of the main defenses from the approaches to Paris from the north. Meanwhile, the inventor and British manufacturer Isaac Holden had opened mills at Reims and Croix, which "by the 1870s [...] were producing almost 12 million kilograms of carded wool a year [...] and amounted to 27% of all wool consumed by the French industry".

A month after Blériot crossed the wick channel into a biplane, the aviation week in Reims (August 1909) caught a special attention.

On October 30, 1908, Henri Farman made the first cross-country flight from Châlons to Reims. In August 1909, Reims hosted the first international aviation meeting, the Grande Semaine d'Aviation de the Champagne. Great aviation figures such as Glenn Curtiss, Louis Blériot and Louis Paulhan participated.

The hostilities of World War I damaged much of the city. The German bombardment and subsequent fire in 1914 heavily damaged the cathedral. The ruined cathedral became one of the central images of anti-German propaganda produced in France during the war, which presented it, along with the ruins of the Ypres Cloth Hall and the Leuven University Library, as evidence that the German aggression was centered on cultural landmarks of European civilization.

Destroyers in Reims in 1916 World War I product

From the end of World War I to the present, an international effort to restore the cathedral from the ruins has continued. Much of the cathedral was destroyed by German planes, but thanks to the efforts of citizens, it was rebuilt, reopening in 1938, thanks in large part to donations from the Rockefeller family. The palace of Tau, the church of Santiago and the abbey of San Remigio were also protected^{[citation needed]} and restored. The collection of preserved buildings and Roman ruins are still impressive.

German surrender on 7 May 1945 in Reims

During World War II the city suffered additional damage. On the morning of May 7, 1945, at 2:41 a.m., General Eisenhower and the Allies received the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht at Reims. General Alfred Jodl, German chief of staff, signed the surrender at the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) as the representative of German President Karl Dönitz.

British statesman Leslie Hore-Belisha died of a cerebral hemorrhage while giving a speech at the Hôtel de Ville in February 1957.

Demographics

Transportation

The city of Reims is accessible via the A4 motorway from Paris to the west, from Metz and Strasbourg to the east, via the A26 motorway from Lille and Calais in the north, from Troyes and Lyon in the south and via the A34 motorway from Charleville-Mézières and from Belgium to the north.

Places and monuments

Tau Palace

The main places in Reims are the place Drouet-d'Erlon, the place Royale, in the center, where there is a statue of Louis XV, and the place du Parvis, where there is a statue of Joan of Arc. The rue de Vesle, the most important artery, crosses the city from southwest to northeast.

Reims Cathedral

Basilica of Saint-Remi

Reims was badly damaged by bombing in World War I; Even so, the city preserves outstanding buildings, monuments and churches. Among them, the most notable are:

• Notre-Dame de Reims Cathedral, famous for being the consecration of the Kings of France
• The Basilica of Saint-Remi
• The Tau Palace
• The Castle of the Count

These three buildings were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991. The Hôtel de Ville, built in the 17th century and enlarged in the XIX, presents a petition with an equestrian statue of Louis XIII (reigned 1610-1643).

Sports

Equipment	Sport	Competition	Stadium	Creation
Stade de Reims	Football	Ligue 1	Stade Auguste Delaune	1934
Champagne Châlons Reims Basket	Basquetball	French National Basketball League	Complexe René-Tys	2010

Twinned cities

Notable people