Orléans
- This article is about the French city of Orléans; for other meanings see Orleans (disambiguation).
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Commune of Orléans |
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| Location | |
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| Coordinates | |
| Administration | |
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| Country | France |
| Region | Centre (capital) |
| Department | Loiret (préfecture) |
| Arrondissement | Orléans |
| Canton | Chief town of 6 cantons |
| Intercommunality | Agglomération Orléans Val de Loire |
| Mayor | Serge Grouard (UMP) (2001-2008) |
| Statistics | |
| Altitude | 90 m–124 m (avg. 116 m) |
| Land area¹ | 27.48 km² |
| Population² (1999) |
113,126 |
| - Density | 4,117/km² (1999) |
| Miscellaneous | |
| INSEE/Postal code | 45234/ 45000 |
| 1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. | |
| 2 Population sans doubles comptes: single count of residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel). | |
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Orléans (Latin, meaning golden) is a city and commune in north-central France, about 130 km (80 miles) southwest of Paris. It is the préfecture (capital) of the Loiret département and of the Centre région. Population (1999): 113,126.
History
Orléans was founded as a Gallic civitas (city state) of the Celtic Carnutes tribe, called Cenabum (known erroneously as Genabum). It was refounded in 275 by the Roman Emperor Aurelian who gave it his name, Aurelianum, "the city of Aurelianus". In 451, Attila the Hun made an attempt to capture and sack the city, only to be driven off by the last-minute arrival of an army under the combined command of Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, and the Roman general Aëtius.
It was the capital of the Merovingian king (27 November 511 - 25 June 524) Clodomir (Clodmer) (b. 495 - d. 524) of what was since known as the kingdom of Burgundy.
The Siege of Orléans in 1428 - 1429 marked a turning point in the Hundred Years' War. Joan of Arc made her reputation here by lifting the siege nine days after she arrived.
University and other education
The schools of Orléans early acquired great prestige; in the 6th century Gontran, King of Burgundy, had his son Gondebaud educated there. After Theodolfus had developed and improved the schools, Charlemagne, and later Hugh Capet, sent their eldest sons there as pupils. These institutions were at the height of their fame from the 11th century to the middle of the 13th. Their influence spread as far as Italy and England whence students came to them. Among the medieval rhetorical treatises which have come down to us under the title of Ars or Summa Dictaminis four, at least, were written or re-edited by Orléans professors. In 1230, when for a time the doctors of the University of Paris were scattered, a number of the teachers and disciples took refuge in Orléans; when pope Boniface VIII, in 1298, promulgated the sixth book of the Decretals, he appointed the doctors of Bologna and the doctors of Orléans to comment upon it. St. Yves (1253-1303) studied civil law at Orléans, and Clement V also studied there law and letters; by a Papal Bull published at Lyon, 27 January, 1306, he endowed the Orléans institutes with the title and privileges of a University (it has been founded as one of the very earliest universities outside Italy in 1235, only two years after Cambridge and Toulouse, in France only Paris' Sorbonne was even older). Twelve later popes granted the new university many privileges. In the 14th century it had as many as five thousand students from France, Germany, Lorraine, Burgundy, Champagne, Picardy, Normandy, Touraine, Guyenne and Scotland. Among those who studied or lectured there are quoted: in the 14th century, Cardinal Pierre Bertrandi; in the 15th, Johann Reuchlin; in the 16th, religious reformer Calvin and Théodore de Bèze, the Protestant Anne du Bourg, the publicist François Hotmann, the jurisconsult Pierre de l'Etoile; in the 17th, Molière (perhaps in 1640), and the savant lexicographer Du Cange; in the 18th, the jurisconsult Pothier.
Miscellaneous
Friedrich Schiller gave his influential 1801 play about Joan of Arc the title The Maid of Orléans.
New Orleans (originally La Nouvelle-Orléans) is named after the city of Orléans.
Births
Orléans is the patrie (birthplace) of:
- Étienne Dolet (1509-1546), scholar and printer
- Isaac Jogues (1607-1646), Jesuit missionary
- Robert-Joseph Pothier (1699-1772), jurist
- Stanislas Julien (1797-1873), orientalist
- Gustave Lanson (1857-1934), historian
- Charles Péguy (1873-1914), poet and essayist
- Raoul Blanchard (1877-1965), geographer
- Jean Zay (1904-1944), jurist and politician
Twin cities
The city is twinned with:
Dundee, Scotland, United
Kingdom
Treviso, Italy
Münster, Germany
Kristiansand, Norway
Wichita, Kansas, United States
Tarragona, Spain
Saint-Flour, France
Utsunomiya, Japan
Kraków, Poland
Parakou, Benin
See also
Sources and external links
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
- (French) Orleans city official web site
- (English) Visiting Orléans
- France on WorldStatesmen
 Regional prefectures of France |
|---|
| Strasbourg
(Alsace) • Bordeaux (Aquitaine) • Clermont-Ferrand (Auvergne) • Dijon (Bourgogne) •
Rennes (Bretagne) • Orléans
(Centre) • Châlons-en-Champagne
(Champagne-Ardenne) • Ajaccio (Corsica) • Besançon (Franche-Comté) •
Paris (Île-de-France) •
Montpellier (Languedoc-Roussillon) •
Limoges (Limousin) • Metz (Lorraine) • Toulouse
(Midi-Pyrénées) • Lille (Nord-Pas de Calais) • Caen (Basse-Normandie) • Rouen (Haute-Normandie) • Nantes (Pays de la
Loire) • Amiens (Picardie) • Poitiers (Poitou-Charentes) • Marseille (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) • Lyon (Rhône-Alpes) Overseas regions Cayenne (French Guiana) • Basse-Terre (Guadeloupe) • Fort-de-France (Martinique) • Saint-Denis (Réunion) |
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