Reims

Reims lies on the Vesle in northern Champagne, an archbishopric whose cathedral was the coronation church of the kings of France. Tradition traced the rite to the baptism of Clovis by Bishop Remigius, and the archbishop anointed each king with oil from the Holy Ampulla. The Gothic cathedral of Notre-Dame, begun in 1211, stood beside the archbishop's palace of Tau, where the new king dined after the ceremony.

Reims set up a town council in the years after Crécy and Poitiers, and when Edward III of England laid siege to the city in the winter of 1359–60 it held out until he withdrew. Charles VI was crowned here in 1380. In 1429 Reims opened its gates to Charles VII and Joan of Arc, and he was crowned on 17 July with her standing near the altar. Most later kings were crowned in the same cathedral, and the last coronation at Reims was that of Charles X in 1825. Cardinal Charles of Lorraine founded the university here in 1548, and Reims wine merchants also shipped Champagne.