The agglomeration has grown well beyond the city's administrative limits. The

Middle Ages to Louis XIV[edit]

See also: Paris in the Middle Ages, Paris in the 16th century, and Paris in the 17th century

The Palais de la Cité and Sainte-Chapelle, viewed from the Left Bank, from the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (month of June) (1410)
By the end of the 12th century, Paris had become the political, economic, religious, and cultural capital of France.^[25] The Palais de la Cité, the royal residence, was located at the western end of the Île de la Cité. In 1163, during the reign of Louis VII, Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris, undertook the construction of the Notre Dame Cathedral at its eastern extremity. The Left Bank was the site of the University of Paris, a corporation of students and teachers formed in the mid-12th century to train scholars first in theology, and later in canon law, medicine and the arts.^[26][25]
The Right Bank became the centre of commerce and finance. The merchants who controlled the trade on the river formed a league and quickly became a powerful force. Between 1190 and 1202, Philip Augustus built the massive fortress of the Louvre, continued the construction of Notre Dame, rebuilt the two bridges, began paving Paris's main thoroughfares, and the construction of a fortified wall around the city.^[27]
During the Hundred Years' War, in the night of 28–29 May 1418, a force of 800 men attached to John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, and led by Jean de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam made its way into Paris. Two and half years later, on 1 December 1420, Henry V of England made his solemn entrance into the French capital.^[28] Paris was occupied by the English and their Burgundian allies until 1436. They repelled an attempt by Joan of Arc to liberate the city in September 1429.^[29] A century later, during the French Wars of Religion, Paris was a stronghold of the Catholic League. On 24 August 1572, it was the site of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, when thousands of French Protestants were killed.^[30][31] The last of these wars, the eighth one, ended in 1594, after Henri IV had converted to Catholicism and was finally able to enter Paris as he supposedly declared Paris vaut bien une messe ("Paris is well worth a Mass"). The city had been neglected for decades; by the time of his assassination in 1610, Henry IV had rebuilt the Pont Neuf, the first Paris bridge with sidewalks and not lined with buildings, linked with a new wing the Louvre to the Tuileries Palace, and created the first Paris residential square, the Place Royale, now Place des Vosges.^[32]
In the 17th century, Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of Louis XIII, was determined to make Paris the most beautiful city in Europe. He built five new bridges, a new chapel for the College of Sorbonne, and a palace for himself, the Palais Cardinal, which he bequeathed to Louis XIII, and which became, after his own death in 1642, the Palais-Royal.^[33]
Louis XIV distrusted the Parisians and moved his court to Versailles in 1682, but his reign also saw an unprecedented flourishing of the arts and sciences in Paris. The Comédie-Française, the Academy of Painting, and the French Academy of Sciences were founded and made their headquarters in the city. To show that the city was safe against attack, he had the city walls demolished, replacing them with Grands Boulevards.^[34] To leave monuments to his reign, he built the Collège des Quatre-Nations, Place Vendôme, Place des Victoires, and began Les Invalides.^[35]