Rheims and the Battles for Its Possession

Rheims and the Battles for Its Possession is credited to Pneu Michelin. The text says that in 1182 a royal charter granted the inhabitants the right to elect for a year twelve échevins (aldermen) and re-established the Commune in fact, if not in name, but that the struggle between the Commune and the archbishop still went on. The text says that in 1228, Archbishop Henri-de-Braine, not feeling himself safe in the city, built the fortified castle of Mars-Gate (or old castle of the archbishops) outside the walls.

The text says the city developed in the course of the Middle Ages and that, with Chartres, it had a well-attended episcopal school, long before Paris. The school is said to have had among its masters Gerbert, one of the most learned men of the Middle Ages, who became Pope under the name of Sylvester II. The text says that in 1918, during their offensives against Rheims, the Germans attacked several times, and that on June 1, between Pommery Park (in the south-eastern outskirts of Rheims) and the north-east of Sillery, they attacked with eight or nine battalions and fifteen tanks.