City's history

9th century: The Oaths of Strasbourg: two grandsons of Charlemagne pledged mutual assistance before their armies, in two documents, one in the Tudesque langue, the other in Roman (old French). The latter is considered as the oldest text written in this language.

11th century: Beginning of the construction of the Cathedral. The work would be completed four centuries later (1439), making Notre-Dame the highest monument in Christendom at the time.

13th century: Strasbourg, attached to the crown of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, freed itself from the rule of the bishop and obtained from the Emperor greater political freedoms than those enjoyed by other cities.

14th century: Strasbourg was proclaimed a Free Imperial City. It then enjoyed a period of remarkable economic growth. The tradesmen’s fair was created in 1336 and the Rhine bridge was built in 1388, the last bridge over the river before the sea. Several epidemics devastated the population, in particular the Black Death in 1349. The Jews were accused of poisoning the wells and were burned at the stake, men, women and children.

15th century: Strasbourg became one of the main European centres of printing, after Gutenberg spent ten years there. The city attracted numerous artists and intellectuals. The humanist movement prospered here, distinguished by eminent Strasbourg residents such as Sebastian Brant, author of The Ship of Fools. On the religious front, it was the (Germanic) Concordat of Vienna (1448) that applied: the bishop was not appointed by royal prerogative, but elected by the canons.

16th century: Strasbourg pronounced itself for the religious Reformation. The free city took in the persecuted dissidents, vulgarized their writings. Jean Calvin found refuge there and created the first Reformed parish, before leaving for Geneva. Public education developed, for both girls and boys. The Gymnase Sturm was founded in 1538, but its Protestant identity prevented it from claiming the status of a university.

17th century: The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) tore Europe apart. The whole of Alsace was laid to waste. In exchange for its neutrality, in 1621 Strasbourg obtained permission to found a university, which would thus be Lutheran. Under the Treaties of Westphalia, the king of France annexed Alsace. He reintroduced Catholicism, but guaranteed religious freedom.

18th century: Its close proximity to the Germanic empire made the city a highly strategic place. The German language and the Protestant religion continued to dominate, but the French influence was gaining ground. Numerous private residences bear the traces of this influence. Throughout this century, a family of princes, the Rohans, monopolized Episcopal power. They built a palace to their glory, near the Cathedral. The reputation of Strasbourg and its university began to radiate further afield: Goethe and Metternich studied there alongside thousands of other students from all over Europe. The city excelled in the teaching of law and medicine. During the Revolution, the city asserted its adhesion to the Republic. It was on this occasion that Rouget de Lisle composed the Marseillaise in Strasbourg.

19th century: A trading city and major financial centre, Strasbourg developed all possible communication routes: new canals linked the Rhine to the Marne and the Rhône; a railway line brought the city closer to Paris. In 1870, following the war between France and Prussia, Alsace, Strasbourg included, as well as a part of Lorraine were annexed by Germany. The city emerged bruised and battered from the conflict. In eighty years, it would change nationality four times.

20th century: During the First World War, Strasbourg’s men were incorporated into the German army: 3,000 of them would die serving the Kaiser. When the war ended, the city became French again, rejecting, sometimes violently, the symbols of its former membership of the German Empire. The 1930s saw an industrial boom, consolidated by the development of river navigation. Its position on the border made Strasbourg a sitting target in 1939: just before the outbreak of the Second World War, some 120,000 people were evacuated by the French government to the South-West of France, including the whole of the city’s Jewish community. Of the 10,000 Jews living in Strasbourg before the war, 8,000 of them would return after the Liberation and a thousand would perish in concentration camps. After the Armistice, Alsace was once again annexed to Germany, but this time at the price of harsh germanization. Enrolment in the Wehrmacht, obligatory from 1942 on, sent many Alsatian “Malgré Nous” (unwilling recruits) to the Eastern front. In 1944, the city, in particular the Palais Rohan and the Cathedral, was bombed by the Allies, before being liberated by General Leclerc in November of the same year, and finding freedom once more.