Montpellier

Montpellier grew up a few miles inland from the Mediterranean, after pirate raids drove people away from the episcopal town of Maguelone. Its name is medieval Latin for "Woad Mountain", from the blue dye prepared here, and the lords of the Guilhem family walled the town around the year 1000. In 1204 Marie of Montpellier brought it to Peter II of Aragon as her dowry, and under the Aragonese it became the kingdom's centre of the spice trade, with some 40,000 people before the Black Death. Its medical school, given statutes in 1220, drew students such as Rabelais and Nostradamus.

James III of Majorca, in need of money against Peter IV of Aragon, sold the city to Philip VI of France in 1349, and it became part of Languedoc. Protestants took control in 1562, and in 1593 Henry IV founded the university botanical garden. As one of the Huguenot places of surety, the city was besieged by Louis XIII in 1622, and its walls were ordered down and a royal citadel built.