Travel Guide Senlis

The ancient city of a peaceful Gallic agricultural people - the Silvanectes -, Senlis was renamed Augustomagus - the Augustan market - by the Romans who protected it with a thick wall punctuated with twenty-eight towers, a large part of which has been preserved. Saint Rieul evangelized Senlis in the middle of the 4th century. In the 12th century, the strategic position of the town, between Paris and Flanders, favoured the development of the city. All the kings of France, from Hugues Capet - who had himself proclaimed king - to Charles X stayed there. The first Capetians favoured the economic and religious development of this inescapable stronghold. In 1153, the first stones of the Notre-Dame cathedral were laid. It was consecrated in 1191. In 1173, King Louis VII granted a communal charter to the town. The city continued to expand. A second rampart was built by Philippe Auguste - progressively modified and reinforced - to protect the suburbs of the city. This enclosure of nearly 40 hectares will house what is today a prestigious historical and architectural heritage: the cathedral and its remarkable spire, the Saint-Frambourg chapel, the Saint-Vincent abbey and the Saint-Maurice priory. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the notables built splendid private mansions, which monumental portals shelter from view. This architectural characteristic remains today one of the particularities of Senlis - every even-numbered year, the Rendez-vous de Septembre allows to discover the hidden treasures of this private heritage.