Laon - Cathédrale Notre-Dame

Laon, placed on a ridge and overlooking the flat Picardy plain, was a strategic, fortified site, already in Roman times. St. Remi founded a bishopric here in 487. Laon was a very important place in the kingdom of the Franks.

A Carolingian cathedral, consecrated in 800 in the presence of Charlemagne, existed here. The Carolingian structure got replaced two centuries later by a Romanesque structure, consecrated in 1071.

This cathedral was torched by the citizens during the Easter Insurrection on 25 April 1112. Bishop Waldric (aka "Gaudry"), who had served as Lord Chancellor and Lord Keeper of England, from 1103 to 1107 (described as greedy and violent) was killed during the uproar. The cathedral got repaired, but in the end demolished to give room for the present cathedral.

The construction began about 1160. The nave was completed after 1205. The "Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Laon", towering over the town, is a wonderful, early example of the Gothic style that developed in Northern France.

Laon had one of the most important cathedral schools in the 11th/12th century. Anselm of Laon and his brother Radulf taught here from about 1090 on . Peter Abelard moved to Laon to attend the lectures of Anselm on biblical exegesis. But when soon after Abelard began to offer his own lectures, he got expelled from this school by Anselm in 1113.