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Rouen

 
Dictionary: Rou·en1   (rū-än', -äN') pronunciation
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A city of northern France on the Seine River west-northwest of Paris. Of pre-Roman origin, it was repeatedly raided by the Norse in the ninth century, became the capital of medieval Normandy in the tenth century, and was held by the English from 1418 to 1449. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake here in 1431. Population: 110,000.

 

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

Rouen

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Rouen
City (pop., 2006 est.: city, 107,904; metro. area, 388,798), northwestern France. Situated on the Seine River, Rouen became important in the 3rd century AD after the arrival of Christianity with St. Mellon. Sacked by the Normans in 876, it became the medieval capital of Normandy. It came under English rule in 1066 and again in 1419. Joan of Arc was imprisoned and executed there in 1431. Rouen was recaptured by the French in 1449. Historic buildings include the 14th-century abbey of Saint Ouen and the great Gothic cathedral, whose oldest parts date to the 11th century. The city was the birthplace of Pierre Corneille and Gustave Flaubert.

For more information on Rouen, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia:

Rouen

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Rouen (rūäN'), city (1990 pop. 105,470), capital of Seine-Maritime dept., N France. Situated on the Seine near its mouth at the English Channel, Rouen functions as the port of Paris, handling an enormous volume of traffic. Among its many manufactures are metal products, chemicals, drugs, textiles, paper, and leather goods. Rouen is also an old commercial, administrative, and cultural center. Of pre-Roman origin, Rouen was the victim of repeated raids (9th cent.) by the Norsemen. By the 10th cent. it was the capital of Normandy and a leading European city. It was held (1419-49) in the Hundred Years War by the English. Joan of Arc was tried and burned there in 1431. From 1499 to 1789, Rouen was, with interruptions, the seat of a provincial parlement. A judicial center, it furnished many magistrates to France. Rouen has been an archiepiscopal see since the 5th cent. and is particularly rich in ecclesiastical buildings (see Gothic architecture and art). Rouen suffered severe damage in World War II; its port and much of the city had to be reconstructed. Damaged, but since restored, are the cathedral of Notre Dame (12th-15th cent.) with its famous Tour de Beurre [butter tower]; the Church of St. Maclou and the palace of justice (both 15th-16th cent.); and the Grosse Horloge, a Renaissance clock tower. The houses where Pierre Corneille and Gustave Flaubert were born are both museums. A university opened in Rouen in 1966.

Dialing Code:

The telephone dialing code for: Rouen, France

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The country code is: 33
The city code is: 235

Wikipedia:

Rouen

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For other uses, see Rouen (disambiguation).

Coordinates: 49°26′28″N 1°05′47″E / 49.441203°N 1.096272°E / 49.441203; 1.096272

Rouen
Rouen Cathedral.jpg
Rouen
Location
Rouen is located in France
Rouen
Time zone CET (UTC +1)
Administration
Country France
Region Upper Normandy
Department Seine-Maritime (76)
Arrondissement Rouen
Intercommunality Agglomeration community of Rouen
Mayor Valérie Fourneyron (PS)
(2008 - 2014)
Statistics
Land area1 21.38 km2 (8.25 sq mi)
Population2 107,904  (2006)
 - Ranking 36th in France
 - Density 5,047 /km2 (13,070 /sq mi)
Urban spread
Urban area 448 km2 (173 sq mi)
 - Population 405,392 (2006)
Metro area 1,582.51 km2 (611.01 sq mi) (1999)
 - Population 518,316 (1999)
Website www.rouen.fr
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: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

Rouen (French pronunciation: [ʁwɑ̃]) is the historic capital city of Normandy, in northern France on the River Seine, and currently the capital of the Haute-Normandie (Upper Normandy) region. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe, Rouen was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages. It was one of the capitals of the Anglo-Norman dynasties, which ruled both England and large parts of modern France from the eleventh century to the 15th century. It was in Rouen where Joan of Arc was burnt in 1431. People from Rouen are called Rouennais.

The population of the metropolitan area (in French: aire urbaine) at the 1999 census was 518,316 inhabitants and 532,559 inhabitants at the 2007 estimate. The city proper has an estimated population of 110,276 in 2007.

Contents

Administration

Rouen is the capital of the Haute-Normandie (Upper Normandy) région, as well as a commune and the préfecture (capital) of the Seine-Maritime département.

Rouen and 44 suburban communes of the metropolitan area form the Agglomeration community of Rouen, with 405,392 inhabitants in it at the 2006 census. In descending order of population, the largest of these suburbs are Sotteville-lès-Rouen, Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, Le Grand-Quevilly, Le Petit-Quevilly, and Mont-Saint-Aignan, each with a population exceeding 20,000 inhabitants.

History

Rouen was founded by the Gaulish tribe of the Veliocasses, who controlled a large area in the lower Seine valley. They called it Ratumacos;[1] the Romans called it Rotomagus.[2] Roman Rotomagus was the second city of Gallia Lugdunensis after Lugdunum (Lyon) itself. Under the reorganization of Diocletian, Rouen was the chief city of the divided province Gallia Lugdunensis II and reached the apogee of its Roman development, with an amphitheatre and thermae of which foundations remain. In the fifth century it became the seat of a bishopric, though the names of early bishops are purely legendary[3] and later a capital of Merovingian Neustria.

From their first incursion in the lower valley of the Seine in 841,[4] the Normans overran Rouen; from 912 Rouen was the capital of the Duchy of Normandy and residence of the dukes until William the Conqueror established his castle at Caen.

In 1150 Rouen received its founding charter, permitting self-government. During the twelfth century Rouen was the site of a yeshiva; at that time, about 6,000 Jews lived in the town, comprising about 20% of the population, in addition to a large number of Jews scattered about another 100 communities in Normandy. The well-preserved remains of the yeshiva were discovered in the 1970s under the Rouen Law Courts, and the community has begun a project to restore them.

City Hall and Church of St. Ouen, Rouen.

In 1200 a fire destroyed a part of the old cathedral and the present Gothic mainworks cathedral of Rouen were begun. On June 24, 1204 Philip II Augustus of France entered Rouen and definitively annexed Normandy to the French Kingdom. He demolished the Norman castle and replaced it with his own, the Château Bouvreuil, built on the site of the Gallo-Roman amphitheatre.[5] A textile industry developed, based on wool imported from England, for which the cities of Flanders and Brabant were constantly competitors, and finding its market in the Champagne fairs. Rouen depended for its prosperity also on the river traffic of the Seine, of which it enjoyed a monopoly that reached as far upstream as Paris. Wine and wheat were exported to England, as tin and wool received in return. In the fourteenth century urban strife threatened the city: in 1291 the mayor was assassinated and noble residences in the city were pillaged. Philip IV reimposed order and suppressed the city's charter and the lucrative monopoly on river traffic; but he was quite willing for the Rouennais to repurchase their old liberties in 1294. In 1306 he decided to expel the Jewish community of Rouen, then numbering some five or six thousands. In 1389 another urban revolt of the underclass occurred, the Harelle; it was part of widespread rebellion in France that year[6] and was suppressed with the withdrawal of Rouen's charter and river-traffic privileges once more.

During the Hundred Years' War, on January 19, 1419, Rouen surrendered to Henry V of England, who annexed Normandy once again to the Plantagenet domains. But Rouen did not go quietly: Alain Blanchard hung English prisoners from the walls, for which he was summarily executed; Canon and Vicar General of Rouen Robert de Livet became a hero for excommunicating the English king, resulting in de Livet's imprisonment for five years in England. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen on May 30, 1431 in this city, where most inhabitants supported the duke of Burgundy, Joan of Arc's king enemy. The king of France Charles VII recaptured the town in 1449.

The city was heavily damaged during World War II on D-day and its famed cathedral was almost destroyed by Allied bombs. During the German occupation, the German Navy had its headquarters located in a chateau on the École Supérieure de Commerce de Rouen campus.

Main sights

Rouen Cathedral.

Rouen is known for its Notre Dame cathedral, with its Tour de Beurre (butter tower). The cathedral was the subject of a series of paintings by Claude Monet, some of which are exhibited in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

The Gros Horloge is an astronomical clock (dating back to the 16th century) though the movement is considerably older (1389). It is located in the Gros Horloge street.

Other famous structures include the Gothic Church of Saint Maclou (15th century); the Tour Jeanne d'Arc, where Joan of Arc was brought in 1431 to be threatened with torture (contrary to popular belief, she was not imprisoned there); the Church of Saint Ouen (12th–15th century); the Palais de Justice, which was once the seat of the Parlement (French court of law) of Normandy and the Museum of Fine Arts and Ceramics which contains a splendid collection of faïence and porcelain for which Rouen was renowned during the 16th to 18th centuries.

Rouen is noted for its surviving half-timbered buildings.

There are many museums in Rouen: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, an art museum with pictures of well-known painters such as Claude Monet and Géricault, Musée maritime fluvial et portuaire, a museum on the history of the port of Rouen and navigation, Musée des antiquités, an art and history museum with antic or gothic works, Musée de la céramique, Musée Le Secq des Tournelles...

The Jardin des Plantes de Rouen is a notable botanical garden dating to 1840 in its present form; it was previously owned by Scottish banker John Law and the site of several historic balloon ascents.

In the centre of the Place du Vieux Marché is the modern church of Saint Joan of Arc. This is a large, modern structure which dominates the square. The form of the building represents the pyre on which Joan of Arc was burnt.

Rouen was also home to the French Grand Prix, hosting the race at the nearby Rouen-Les-Essarts track sporadically between 1952 and 1968. Much of the former circuit was extant into recent years, before a campaign in 1999 by Rouen authorities to obliterate remainders of Rouen's racing past. Today, little remains beyond the public roads that formed the circuit.

Transport

The métro.

Mainline train services operate from Gare de Rouen-Rive-Droite to Le Havre and Paris. Regional services operate to Caen, Dieppe, and other local destinations in Normandy. Daily direct trains operate to Amiens and Lille, and direct TGVs (high-speed trains) connect daily with Lyon and Marseille.

City transportation in Rouen is served by the métro. It branches into two lines out of a metro tunnel running through the city centre. Rouen is also served by TEOR and buses run in conjunction with the tramway by the transit company TCAR (Transports en commun de l'agglomération rouennaise), a subsidiary of Veolia Transport.

Rouen has its own airport, serving major domestic destinations as well as international destinations in Europe.

The Seine is a major axis for maritime (cargo) links in the Port of Rouen; and the Cross-Channel ferry ports of Caen, Le Havre, Dieppe (50 minutes), and Calais, and the Channel Tunnel are also within easy driving distance (i.e. two and a half hours or less).

Education

Gros-Horloge.

Higher education in Rouen is provided by the University of Rouen, the École Supérieure de Commerce de Rouen (Rouen Business School) and ésitpa (agronomy and agriculture) - all centred or located at nearby Mont-Saint-Aignan, and INSA Rouen and ESIGELEC - both at nearby Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray.

Births

Tour des archives.
Rouen zénith

Rouen was the birthplace of:

International relations

See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in France

Twin towns — Sister cities

Rouen is twinned with:

In fiction and popular culture

Fine art

Rouen Cathedral, Full Sunlight, by Claude Monet, 1894.

The Rouen Cathedral was the subject for a series of paintings by the Impressionist painter Claude Monet, who painted the same scene at different times of the day. Two paintings are in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; one is in the National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade. The estimated value of one painting is over $40 million.

Literature

  • The character Erik, or The Opera Ghost of Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera was supposedly born "in a small town not far from Rouen".[9]
  • Rouen also played a major part in the Flaubert novel Madame Bovary.
  • Maupassant, a student of Flaubert, wrote a number of short stories based in and around Rouen.
  • In book two of The Strongbow Saga, the Vikings invade and conquer Ruda, also known as Rouen and make it their base in Frankia.

Music

The British band Supergrass named their fifth studio album Road to Rouen, punning on an Anglicised version of the city name's pronunciation.

Film

In the 2001 movie A Knight's Tale, the protagonist William Thatcher played by Heath Ledger poses as a noble and competes in his first jousting tournament at Rouen.

Computer games

Heraldry

Arms of Rouen
 The arms of Rouen are blazoned :
Gules, a pascal lamb, haloed and contorny, holding a banner argent charged with a cross Or, and on a chief azure, 3 fleurs de lys Or

Note that on the front of the "Grand Poste" (rue Jeanne d'Arc), the banner is charged with a leopard (i.e. the lion passant seen on Norman and English arms). This was the official seal of Rouen at the beginning of the 12th century.


See also

Search Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rouen

References

  1. ^ Ratu- is not well explained; -macus, magus is a familiar toponymic suffix signifying "plain".
  2. ^ As in Ammianus Marcellinus and the Notitia dignitatum; other variants: Ratomagos (Ptolemy, Geography), Ratomagos (Antonine Itinerary, Tabula Peutingeriana).
  3. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia, at "Diocese of Rouen", records that Saint Mellon[ius] was credited with being the first bishop until a Nicaise, linked to Denis of Paris was inserted to precede him: see Diocese of Rouen.
  4. ^ Recorded in the chronicle of Fontenelle Abbey.
  5. ^ It was destroyed at the end of the fifteenth century, its stones quarried for other construction, except for the tower associated with Joan of Arc, restored by Viollet-le-Duc.
  6. ^ See Popular revolt in late medieval Europe for broad context.
  7. ^ "Gdańsk Official Website: 'Miasta partnerskie'" (in Polish & English). © 2009 Urząd Miejski w Gdańsku. http://www.gdansk.pl/samorzad,62,733.html. Retrieved 2009-07-11. 
  8. ^ "Hanover - Twin Towns" (in German). © 2007-2009 HANNOVER.de - Offizielles Portal der Landeshauptstadt und der Region Hannover in Zusammenarbeit mit hier.de. http://www.hannover.de/de/buerger/entwicklung/partnerschaften/staedte_regionspartnerschaften/index.html. Retrieved 2009-07-17. 
  9. ^ http://www.gutenberg.org/files/175/175.txt

External links

v • d • e
Préfectures of régions of France
Metropolitan France
Overseas regions

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2009 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
Answers Corporation Dialing Code. © 1999-2009 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Rouen".  Read more

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