Paris in the Middle Ages Paris in the Middle Ages In the 10th century, Paris was a provincial cathedral city of little political or economic significance, but under the kings of the Capetian dynasty who ruled France between 987 and 1328, it developed into an important commercial and religious center and the seat of the royal administration of the country. The Île de la Cité became the site of the royal palace and the new cathedral of Notre-Dame, begun in 1163. The Left Bank was occupied by important monasteries, including the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the Abbey of St Genevieve. In the late 1100s, the
Le Spleen de Paris was received certainly lends to understanding the climate in which Baudelaire created "Le Spleen de Paris", in that "It appears to be almost a diary entry, an explicit rundown of the day's events; those events seem to be precisely the kind that Charles Baudelaire would have experienced in the hectic and hypocritical world of the literary marketplace of his day." Notable critical reception: In order to truly understand how "Le Spleen de Paris" was received, one must first be acquainted with Baudelaire's earlier works. The repressions and upheavals of 1848 resulted in massive censorship of literature, which did not bode