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 Paysan de Paris literary device is "le merveilleux quotidien" — a contrast of the mundane with the marvellous. Arnold Bennett described the work as stimulating but uneven. He thought it the best of the six books which he bought in Paris when visiting there in 1927. Walter Benjamin was deeply affected by the book, which became a point of departure for his unfinished magnum opus, "The Arcades Project". Louis Aragon was disappointed with the book's reception by the French literary establishment which he considered too bourgeois and commercial. Le Paysan de Paris Le Paysan de Paris is a surrealist book about places in