Rouen (France) -- Description and travel; Rouen (France) -- History
poems that were written each year in honour of the Feasts, which gave
rise to the jocund office of the Prince des Palinods, of whom we shall
hear more later. Their first poem, written by Robert Wace (the author
of the "Roman de Rou," who was born in Jersey in 1100 and died at the
age of 84 in England) was called "L'Establissement de la feste de la
conception, dicte la Feste as Normands."
The most famous Fair of all was founded a little later by Guillaume
Bonne Ame, forty-eighth bishop of Rouen, when he transported the body
of St. Romain in a new and precious shrine from the church of St.
Godard to the Cathedral. At this first procession in 1079 both William
the Conqueror and his wife assisted. The change had been necessitated
by the great crowds of people who had come every year to receive
pardons and indulgences at the shrine of the famous guardian saint of
the city, and who thronged into the neighbouring field, called the
Champ-du-Pardon to this day. When the saint's body had been removed to
the Cathedral, the Foire du Pardon was held in his honour in the same
open space, and the whole ceremony was without doubt the beginning of
that Levee de la Fierte which preserved the memory of St. Romain until
the end of the eighteenth century. By William, the fair was originally
fixed on two days in October, and in 1468 its duration was still
further extended.[15] In the church of St. Etienne des Tonneliers,
which was put under the protection of the monks of St. Ouen at this
time, we can trace further evidence of the gradual consolidation of
various trades; even the institution of the curfew bell, at the
assembly of Caen in 1061, shows that increasing commerce had insisted
upon greater security in the public streets. The Parvis of the
Cathedral, too, was at this time not merely a place of inviolable
sanctuary, but an open space on which merchants could display their
goods and erect booths without any interference save from the canons.
These shops were built up against the crenelated wall that surrounded
the Parvis until the quarrel between canons and bourgeois pulled them
down in 1192. The place was a frequent scene of conflict, and also of
amusement, for in spite of the presence of a cemetery which extended
over the Place de la Calende and the Portail des Libraires and was
only abolished in the last century, the mystery plays were often given
here, using the cemetery as a "background," as was frequently done.
Till 1199 bakers sold bread here. Till 1429 the "Marche aux herbes et
menues denrees" was held here, and then transferred to the Clos aux
Juifs. In 1325 the working jewellers also frequented this locality,
and in the name of the great north porch of the Cathedral is still
preserved the memory of the booksellers of times far more modern.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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