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!