Paris Before Genovefa

Abstract This chapter sets up the book’s main argument by explaining how people in ancient Europe interpreted their landscapes and holy places. Fifth-century Parisians understood their city in several different ways: as a moderately important military and imperial administrative center, as one point in a larger economic network, and as a collection of sacral sites. These three ways of looking at Paris would become important to the story of Gauls’ christianization and Saint Genovefa’s part in it.