Medieval walls of Nantes

Plan of the Roman and medieval walls on a map of pre-modern
 Nantes, before the rivers were covered over.

The medieval walls of Nantes were built in the 13th century.  They followed the course of the old Roman wall for the most part, except in the west, where they enclosed the part of the city that had since sprung up outside the limits of the old Roman town. Like the Roman wall, almost all of the medieval walls were destroyed in the 18th and 19th centuries. But the parts that remain, and that are still visible, are much more accessible than the Roman wall.

As I mentioned in the original post about the Roman wall, that wall was built to protect the city during a chaotic period in Roman history. It was especially meant to protect against the invasions of the Germanic tribes. After the Roman Empire collapsed in western Europe in the 5th century, Celtic tribes from Britain (also fleeing Germanic invasions) settled in the peninsula that was later named after them - Brittany, or "Little Britain." Germanic settlers, the Franks, settled elsewhere in Gaul, including Nantes, and gave their name to modern France.

Nantes was always on the border between France and Brittany, but was usually under French influence. In the 8th century, the Carolingians, the dynasty of Charlemagne, made Nantes into a County in order to defend against attacks from Brittany. Under Charlemagne, the governor of the County was Roland, the subject of a famous medieval poem, one of the earliest works of literature written in French.

The medieval wall on Cours Saint-Pierre, built
on top of Roman ruins.

In the 9th century, the Vikings began to attack the coasts and rivers of Europe. They ended up basically anywhere there was a river they could sail on - Germany, France, England, Ireland, Spain, Italy, even Russia and the Middle East. The Loire and the Erdre rivers were natural targets for them. They invaded Nantes June 24, 843. I imagine they came south down the Erdre, appearing out of the forests that still existed north of Nantes at the time. As I mentioned earlier, they pillaged the Church of St-Similien, throwing the relic of the saint's head down the church's well, which still exists. St-Similien was outside the Roman wall and vulnerable to attack, but the city itself was attacked as well. Vikings in the 8th century could not resist cathedrals and monasteries, which were full of treasure. It may have been at the cathedral that they broke through the wall: the damaged

remains of the Roman wall are still visible nearby. They pillaged the cathedral, and killed the bishop, Gohaud.

Chapel of St. Gohard in the cathedral,
with a painting depicting Gohard's murder
by the Vikings.

The Vikings took their loot and went home, but by now the Carolingian dynasty was too weak to control the western border, and Nantes passed under Breton control for a few decades. But the Vikings came back at the beginning of the 10th century, and this time they intended on staying. They conquered the northern coast of France along the English Channel, the territory now named after them, Normandy (from the Vikings' other name, "Northmen"). They also conquered Nantes entirely in 919, and ruled there until it was reconquered by Brittany in 937. During this time, the Vikings called the city "Namsborg".

The Viking rulers of Normandy completely assimilated into French culture, and in 1066 they also conquered England. Through various marriages and inheritances, the Norman dynasty in England also ended up ruling most of France by the 12th century, while the kings of France controlled nothing more than the area around Paris. One of the major territories of the kings of England was the County of Anjou,

Part of the medieval walls along the former course of the
Loire, now covered over by roads and sidewalks.

directly to the east of Brittany, so naturally they were very interested in what was going on there. The English eventually inherited Brittany too, also by marrying into the ruling dynasty. The English king Henry II, for example, spent a lot of time in Nantes. The play and movie The Lion in Winter are about Henry's "Christmas court" at Chinon in Anjou, and historically, Henry also spent some Christmases in Nantes.

Remains of Tour St-Laurent, outside the cathedral.

English rule did not last long however. The kings of France began to reassert control over all of France at the beginning of the 13th century. The French practised the same policy as the English, marrying into the ruling dynasties of some territories, and conquering some others outright, like Normandy. In Brittany, a cousin of the king married the daughter of the duke in 1213 and ruled Brittany in her name.

The Foire de Nantes in Spring, 2012. The medieval walls were
destroyed to make room for those buildings on the left.

One way of asserting French control over all of Brittany was by building new walls in Nantes and several other cities. At the time, Nantes was outgrowing its Roman wall, which was partly in ruins. Nantes' new walls were built around 1220. They were much bigger and thicker than the Roman wall, and covered about twice the area of the old wall.

In the south and the east, they simply replaced the old wall. In the south they followed the old course of one of the branches of the Loire River, which has since been covered over. The course of the river is now a major road, a tram line, and a pedestrian area, and the river itself is about a kilometre to the south. In 2011 the city was renovating the roads and sidewalks, and there were a few archaeological digs among the construction sites where bits of the medieval walls and the old port were visible. All that has been covered over again, but the

Porte St-Pierre, remnant of the main
medieval gate of Nantes.

ruins of the wall are still there under the sidewalk.

Beyond that was the river and its various islands, some of which are now connected to the mainland: the university housing for foreign researchers where I first lived in Nantes is located on what used to be on an island in the Loire, a few minutes walk south of the archaeological dig in the above picture.

At the southeast corner of the Roman wall, a new castle had just been built when the French took control in the early 13th century (which eventually grew into the castle that is still there today). The new walls enclosed this castle; I suppose the walls of the castle itself are also technically part of the medieval walls, but I'm not exactly sure how they are related, and I'll write more about the castle later anyway.

From the castle, the walls ran north along the Roman wall. Most of the old wall was destroyed but there are small bits of it built into the medieval part. This is the longest and best-preserved section of the medieval walls, from Rue Prémion up to the Porte St-Pierre. Along Cours St-Pierre, you can also see one of the medieval towers, the Tour St-Laurent, just beside the cathedral.

Porte St-Michel in Guérande,
probably similar to what Porte
St-Pierre used to look like.

Twice a year, in the spring and the fall, there is a small carnival, the Foire de Nantes, along Cours St-Pierre and Cours St-Andre.
This part of the wall is not really accessible for those two months while all the carnival trailers are parked against it. I was always amused to see that the Tour St-Laurent was the spot where all the carnival workers set up their satellite dishes.

The cathedral originally did not extend past the Roman and medieval walls, but when it was completed in the 19th century, the walls were destroyed to make room for the new apse. But there are extensive ruins at Porte St-Pierre, the main gate into the medieval city. Not much remains of the Porte now. There is a sidewalk passing through the original gate, which now just looks like a covered walkway. There is a much wider road running past it, and a wide open square in front of it. There are some enormous neoclassical 18th century buildings around the square, which is also one of the main bus terminals. One of the few statues in France of Louis XVI, the king killed during the Revolution, is also located there. But in the Middle Ages, there would have been nothing but a massive, imposing stone wall and towers. It would have looked more like the main gate of Guérande, further to the west in (historical) Brittany, where the walls and towers are still intact.

Ruins of the towers of Porte St-Pierre.

At Porte St-Pierre, the walls turned to the west, but not exactly following the old wall. As far as I know, there is nothing left of

More ruins under Porte St-Pierre

this northern part of the medieval walls. They were all destroyed to make way for the neoclassical buildings, like the building that is currently the Prefecture of the Loire-Atlantique department. The walls here extended a bit further to the north than the Roman wall, so that the street I lived on, for example, was included within the walls. The Roman wall also did not extend all the way to the Erdre, but the medieval walls did. If my apartment had existed in the 13th century, when walking out my door I would have been facing the tower at the northeastern entrance to Nantes and
the "Port Communeau", the city's northernmost port on the Erdre. Now, the Erdre is blocked off there and diverted to the Loire through a canal underneath Cours St-Pierre.

Tour du Haut-Pas

The old course of the river is now the Cours des 50-Otages, and another large section of the walls is visible at the point where they crossed the Erdre to encircle the medieval suburb of Marchix (or St-Nicolas). Or at least, they were visible when I lived in Nantes. This remnant of one of the walls, and part of a tower, were
covered over by some other buildings in the 19th century.  Those buildings were knocked down while I was there, and when I briefly visited Nantes again in 2014, a new building had already been built in front of it. 

The new building that now covers the Tour du Haut-Pas.

Reconstruction of the Tour du Haut-Pas and Porte Sauvetout,
on a sign in front of the construction site on Cours des
50-Otages in 2012. This part of the walls controlled access to
and from the western suburbs, but also access to the Loire
when sailing down the Erdre.

This section was part of a complex series of towers and moats. During the construction and the archaeological dig, there was a helpful map from the Archaeological Society showing what the area used to look like. This small tower was the Tour de Haut-Pas, and it led to a

Remains of Porte Sauvetout.

much bigger tower, the main gate of the city in the Marchix quarter, Porte Sauvetout. All that is left of Porte Sauvetout is a small section, just a few metres high at most. It's located along one of the tram lines just south of the Tour Bretagne, and can be quickly found from Cours des 50-Otages by climbing the stairs beside the new building that has been built over the Tour de Haut-Pas. It was evidently built at the same time as the walls of the castle, with the same alternating lines of large stones and thinner stone bricks - sort of a medieval version of the way the Roman wall was built. The other remnants of the medieval walls don't look like that, they are just plain rocks.
 

Remains of the wall outside the Basilique St-Nicolas.

The last notable section of the medieval walls really is just a hunk of rocks, and not very well preserved. From Porte Sauvetout, following the wide pedestrian walkway south towards the Basilique St-Nicolas, you'll eventually see this part of the walls just outside the entrance to the basilica.

Marchix/St-Nicolas was the focal point of Nantes in the 18th and 19th centuries, so the area is now full of neoclassical and Second Empire architecture. There is the neo-Gothic
basilica, Place Royale and it's fountain, the Palais de la Bourse which is now a FNAC store, the Théâtre Graslin and the Cours Cambronne - all of which are very impressive, and I'll mention some of them in more detail later. Nantes is certainly a very interesting city if you're a fan of that period of architecture. But for a medieval historian like me, they are also reminders that the medieval suburb and its walls no longer exist!

Church of St-Jacques

Façade of St-Jacques.

Location: 47° 11′ 47″ N, 1° 32′ 17″ W

St-Donatien, St-Similien, and most other churches in Nantes are built on ancient or medieval sites, but as far as I am aware, only one, the Church of St-Jacques de Pirmil, is actually the original church (more or less). St-Jacques was built in the 12th century, and restored in the 19th.

The Quartier Saint-Jacques is the only neighbourhood of modern Nantes located on the south bank of the Loire. It used to be called Pirmil, which is still the name of the local tram/bus station.

In the 12th century, Nantes was much smaller, and Pirmil was far outside the walls. The Loire was also much different at the time. Currently, Nantes has only one large island, the Île de Nantes, but this is basically an artificial island created over the centuries by filling in the various branches of the Loire and Erdre rivers. Those branches formed dozens of smaller islands, which were joined together to create one large one. In the Middle Ages, there was just one long bridge connecting Nantes in the north, the islands in the Loire, and Pirmil in the south. At the Pirmil end of the bridge, a castle was built in the 14th century, to protect Nantes during the Hundred Years' War between France and England. The castle has since been destroyed and nothing remains of it.


The church was built in 1180 (as noted by an inscription inside, although that was added much later). A "medieval church" probably brings to mind a Gothic cathedral, like Notre-Dame in Paris, which was actually built around the same time as this church. The Gothic style of Notre-Dame spread to Nantes later; the cathedral in Nantes is another good example of a huge Gothic church, and I'll definitely write more about that later. St-Jacques is still in the Romanesque style though - the architecture and the decorations are rounder, less massive, and less ornate. Romanesque is based on architecture from the late Roman Empire, hence the name: in fact, in French it is simply (and a bit confusingly) called "Roman."

The facade looks old, and it does contain bits of the original church, but it was actually rebuilt in the 19th century.  Most of the interior is from the original Romanesque church. The most interesting parts of the inside are the 12th-century capitals, the top part of a column (although they aren't on their original columns anymore).

Another example of a similar door
from a 12th-century Romanesque
church (at the much more famous
Fontevraud Abbey, near Angers)

St-Jacques actually is a national historical monument, but it's not really a major tourist site, so it's not open to the public. Like the other churches, I had to visit it at the end of Mass one Sunday. It's small, so like at St-Similien, I was easily recognized as a new person. This time, the church's cantor noticed me, and once I explained why I was there (the 12th century is, of course, the best of all centuries), he wanted to point out all the original architecture, especially the capitals.

Restored 19th-century
exterior.

But as usual, the church had to close after Mass. They actually closed it so quickly that they almost locked me inside. I never had another chance to visit it again, which is unfortunate, especially since my pictures all turned out kind of blurry.

Apse of St-Jacques.

The three 12th-century capitals.

The altar and apse.

I couldn't zoom in any more clearly than this, but there is
a small inscription there, the date "1180"

Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Garde

Location: Rue de Bonne Garde
 

Just down the street from St-Jacques is the small Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Garde, which always seems to be open, although I never saw anyone inside. It's not as old at St-Jacques; it was originally built in the mid-17th century, but it was also rebuilt in the 19th century. When it was originally built, it would have been the last chapel on the road away from Nantes, towards Clisson to the south.

Hôpital St-Jacques 

 

The Church of St-Jacques used to be the chapel of a Benedictine monastery. The monastery itself no longer exists, but the church is now just outside a large hospital, the Hôpital St-Jacques. It's a national historical monument too, and it is always open, but it's also a functioning hospital so I didn't wander around too much.

At the entrance there are these two statues. I don't know who they are, but I would guess Hippocrates and Asclepius. They don't seem to be labelled, but I'm sure there are clues in the statues themselves that art historians would recognize!

Church of St-Similien

Location: 47°13′13″ N, 1°33′33″ W

The Église St-Similien is another 19th-century church built on the site of older churches, dating back to the 5th century.

When I first moved to Nantes, I lived in a temporary residence for the university's foreign researchers. It's also in the centre of the city, but in a newer area, further south, closer to the Loire. The apartment I moved to was probably less than 2 kilometres to the north, but I had never really been in that part of the city before. So I was wandering around one day, and just a few minutes away I happened to come across this church.

The nave. The two people in the
centre are the American/
Canadian couple I ran into.

According to tradition, St. Similian was the third bishop of Nantes, in the early 4th century. He is sometimes said to have been the one who baptised St. Donatian. After Similian's death he was buried on a hill outside the city walls, which, like the tomb of Donatian and Rogatian, soon became a pilgrimage site. In the 5th century a church was built over the tomb.

That church was attacked by the Vikings in the 9th century, at the same time that they damaged the Roman wall, pillaged the cathedral and killed the bishop. Here, they destroyed the relics of St. Similian, and threw his head down the well, since that's the sort of thing that Vikings liked to do. The church was eventually repaired and expanded up until the 19th century, when it was torn down and replaced by a neo-Gothic church with a neoclassical facade. But that one was was torn down too, and completely replaced at the end of the 19th century with the current neo-Gothic church, which is actually still unfinished, as you can tell from the facade.

Altar of Notre-Dame de Miséricorde.

All the churches were oriented in different directions, but one thing that hasn't changed since the 5th century is the location of the well. It's unusual to find a well inside a church, but St-Similen has always been built around it. The current structure is from the 19th century, but the well itself is ancient. (Similian's head is probably no longer at the bottom.)




Apparently the church also has one of the oldest surviving baptismal fonts, from the original 5th-century building. Unfortunately I couldn't find that, in the few minutes I was there. Like the other churches that are not historical monuments, St-Similien is generally not open except during Mass, so I was only able to visit it once, and only briefly.

Rose window.

Altar of St. Anne

The one Sunday that I was there, it was pretty empty, as is often the case in French churches. It was so empty that the priest noticed me and knew I had never been there before. He wondered where I was from and what I was doing there, and said I could take pictures until he had to close up the church.

At the same time, there happened to be a random English-speaking couple there, wandering around taking pictures like me. The woman was American but her husband was a fellow Canadian. They were extremely impressed by this church, as if they had never seen anything so ornate before. I'm not sure how they ended up here, but if they thought this was a big church, I told them they should go visit the cathedral. They had no idea about that, but it's visible from the entrance of St-Similien, so I pointed it out to them and they went off to visit it.

View of the church from the observation deck of the
nearby Tour Bretagne.

Since St-Similien isn't an historical monument, I never had a chance to go inside again. It was open during the Journées du patrimoine in 2012, but I was too busy at other sites and wasn't able to come back to St-Similien. But I walked by it frequently. The Talensac outdoor market is nearby, as is Nantes' only skyscraper, the Tour Bretagne. It's not a very remarkable church (from a medieval point of view!), but as with St-Donatien, I liked that this site represents the whole range of Nantes' history. The well has been there since the 5th century, it was destroyed by Vikings, and now it sits in the shadow of a modern skyscraper.