‘Dont l’eau distille
Autour de notre ville,
Et d’un murmurant flot
Maint beau verger enclot,’
as a local sixteenth-century poet has it. Like most old towns, Chartres consisted originally of a small city enclosed by strong walls and of suburbs stretching along the main roads which led to it. As these suburbs increased in size and importance, the enceinte was enlarged so as to include them. This took place at Chartres notably in the twelfth century. But up to that time the area enclosed was remarkably small, for after Hastings had sacked the town ‘the inhabitants had not the heart,’ says the monk Paul, ‘to rebuild all their city, but contented themselves with fortifying the little corner of the ancient town which is still’ (1060) ‘surrounded with walls.’
The line of the enceinte enclosing this ‘little corner of the ancient town’ cannot be exactly traced. But
it certainly ran from the Place de l’Étape-au-Vin (the picturesque old shop built out on wooden supports), and, passing behind the Church of S. Aignan, the Castle of the Counts (Place Billard), crossed the Petit-Boucherie to join the Tertre S. Eman,[44] where was the Porte Evière (Porta Aquaria). Tertres, it should be remarked, are, in Chartrain dialect, little streets of stone steps which facilitate communication between the upper and lower towns. The rest of the town was defended by ditches and ramparts. A few wooden forts guarded the bridges.