Notre Dame was not just a church

When the cathedral was inaugurated in the 13th century, its size met the needs of a prosperous city, but it was far from being the first religious building on the eastern tip of the Île de la Cité (main island in the middle of the river Seine). It was also far from being just a place of worship; it was also an important place of learning that extended beyond the capital.

It all began with Charlemagne, the emperor whose statue stands on the square. In the 8th century, he ordered each bishopric to create a teaching program for future clerics destined to serve the Church and the civil administration. The Episcopal School of Notre Dame was born! It was in the 11th century that the chapter schools of the Île de la Cité took shape, this time with the canons in charge.

The Canonical Enclosure

To the north of the current cathedral, the area surrounded by walls and closed at night was reserved for the residence and activities of the canons, with the bishop’s palace located on the south side. Since Charlemagne, unlike the monks, the canons were allowed to live in individual houses, where they taught and could even accommodate students.

Education was organized as follows: the younger students learned to read, write, and sing. The older students studied the liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Higher education included theology, (canon) law, and medicine.

The reputation of the chapter schools quickly spread beyond the city and country. Students flocked from all over Europe, speaking Latin, a universal language if ever there was one at the time. They were all the more attracted to the École Notre Dame because dialectics had been taught there since the early 12th century. This way of thinking was based on discussion and questioning, and it was not without its problems, as the bishop’s undisputed authority in matters of theology was sometimes challenged.

The Students Move

While until then, education had been concentrated mainly in the canonical enclosure (apart from that provided in the city, in the monasteries ), the 13th century saw the rise of a new district on the left bank: the Latin Quarter.

The young tonsured clerics, wearing long robes, who gravitated around Notre Dame crossed the Petit Pont (Small bridge) and took up residence on the slopes of Sainte Geneviève Hill, the abandoned Gallo-Roman town offering ample accommodation options. The Church of Saint Julien le Pauvre hosted the assemblies of the Universitas (the community of teachers and students of Paris), getting a legal existence by the King in 1200 and by the Pope in 1215. The left bank was distinguished by the teaching of the liberal arts, with the cathedral school retaining theology, law, and medicine.

The Île de la Cité is no longer the center of scholarship, but it remains influential and intends to maintain its preponderance. Thus, the bishop did not hesitate to condemn 219 PhD (defended on the Left Bank) deemed heretical because they were too directly inspired by Aristotle! The chapter of Notre Dame wanted to maintain exclusivity over the teaching of theology but lost ground. Even canon law ended up being taught on the Left Bank…

Today, the Latin Quarter has kept its name, although (almost) no one speaks the language anymore. The University is firmly anchored in the Republic (as indicated by the proud RF on the pediment of the Sorbonne), while a Notre Dame Faculty, recognized by the Pope since 1999, offers courses at the Collège des Bernardins.

A Long Musical Tradition

There is another area where longevity remains an undeniable hallmark of Notre Dame: singing.

From the 12th century onward, Notre Dame distinguished itself with the development of polyphony, combining several voices, in contrast to the monophonic Gregorian plainsong. The works composed in Paris spread throughout Europe.
Intrinsically linked to the practice of worship, singing has been the subject of specialized instruction since the 14th century, with the opening of the choir school to train choirs (children’s and men’s) that accompany daily masses, as well as major celebrations. This structure still exists: 70 singers (boys and girls) aged 5 to 30 attend it.

Their voices rise daily within the cathedral, whose acoustics were particularly carefully considered during the renovation work. The restored building thus constitutes an ideal, almost original, cradle for both the organ and singing.