Tours is a city in France, the préfecture (capital city) of the Indre-et-Loire département, on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection (as perceived by some speakers) of its local spoken French, and for the famous Battle of Tours in 732. It is also the site of the cycling race Paris-Tours. Tours is the largest city in the Centre region of France, although it is not the regional capital, which resides in its second-largest city of Orléans. In 2006, the city itself had 142,000 inhabitants and the metropolitan area had 297,631.

History

In Gallic times the city was important as a crossing point of the Loire. Becoming part of the Roman Empire during the first century AD, the city was named "Caesarodunum" ("hill of Cesar"). The name evolved in the 4th century when the original Gallic name, Turones, became first "Civitas Turonorum" then "Tours". It was at this time that the amphitheatre of Turns, one of the five largest in the Empire, was built. Tours became the metropolis of the Roman province of Lyon towards 380-388, dominating the Loire Valley, Maine and Brittany. One of the outstanding figures of the history of the city was Saint Martin, second bishop who shared his coat with a naked beggar in Amiens. This incident and the importance of Martin in the medieval Christian Occident made Tours, and in particular Saint-Jacques de Compostelle, a major centre of pilgrimage during the Middle Ages.

Middle Ages

In the 6th century Gregoire de Tours, author of the Ten Books of History, made his mark on the town by restoring the cathedral destroyed by a fire in 561. Saint Martin's monastery benefited from its inception, at the very start of the 6th century from patronage and support from the Franc king, Clovis the first, which increased considerably the influence of the saint, the abbey and the city in Gaule. In the 9th century, Tours was at the heart of the Carolingian Rebirth, in particular because of abbatial of Alcuin with Saint Martin. In 845, Tours repulsed the first attack of the Viking chief Hasting. In 850, the Vikings settled at the mouths of the Seine and the Loire. Still led by Hasting, they went up the Loire again in 852 and sacked Angers, Tours and the abbey of Marmoutier.

During the Middle Ages, Tours consisted of two juxtaposed and competing centres. The "City" in the east, heiress of the castrum tardo-antique, was composed of the archepiscopal unit (cathedral and residence of the archbishops) and of the castle of Tours, sites of the authority comtale (tourangelle then angevine) and royal. In the west, the "new city" structured around the Abbey of Saint Martin was emancipated from the City during the 10th century (an enclosure was built towards 918) and became "Châteauneuf". This space, organized between Saint Martin and the Loire, became the economic centre of Tours. Between these two centres remained Varenne, vineyards and fields, little occupied except for the Abbaye Saint-Julien established on the banks of the Loire. The two centres were linked during the 14th century. Tours is a model of the medieval double city.