History
2,000 years of history
In Antiquity, Poitiers (Lemonum) was the capital of a territory inhabited by the Pictones people ; with its first rough streets, public buildings and a wall around it. The city was built on a rocky promontory between two rivers, the Clain and the Boivre, and began to grow after the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC. Towards the end of the 3rd century AD a large defensive wall was built around it.
In the Middle Ages, the city formed around its religious function. The construction of a baptistery in the 5th century illustrates the beginnings of Christianity here. The Romanesque period in architecture saw many new churches built : the churches of Notre-Dame-la-Grande, Saint-Porchaire and Saint-Germain, the collegial churches of Sainte-Radegonde and Saint-Hilaire, the cathedral of Saint-Pierre, and the Abbey of Saint-Jean de Montierneuf.
