Reims (/riːmz/; also spelled Rheims; French: [ʁɛ̃s]), a city in the Grand Est region of France, lies 129 km (80 mi) east-northeast of Paris. The 2013 census recorded 182,592 inhabitants (Rémoises (feminine) and Rémois (masculine)) in the city of Reims proper (the commune), and 317,611 inhabitants in the metropolitan area (aire urbaine). Its river, the Vesle, is a tributary of the Aisne.
Founded by the Gauls, it became a major city during the period of the Roman Empire. Reims played a prominent ceremonial role in French monarchical history as the traditional site of the crowning of the kings of France. The Cathedral of Reims (damaged by the Germans during the First World War but restored since) housed the Holy Ampulla (Sainte Ampoule) containing the Saint Chrême (chrism), allegedly brought by a white dove (the Holy Spirit) at the baptism of Clovis in 496. It was used for the anointing, the most important part of the coronation of French kings.
In 496 – ten years after Clovis, King of the Salian Franks, won his victory at Soissons (486) — Remigius, the bishop of Reims, baptized him using the oil of the sacred phial – purportedly brought from heaven by a dove for the baptism of Clovis and subsequently preserved in the Abbey of Saint-Remi. For centuries the events at the crowning of Clovis I became a symbol used by the monarchy to claim the divine right to rule.
Meetings of Pope Stephen II (752–757) with Pepin the Short, and of Pope Leo III (795–816) with Charlemagne (died 814), took place at Reims; and here Pope Stephen IV crowned Louis the Debonnaire in 816. Louis IV gave the city and countship of Reims to the archbishop Artaldus in 940. Louis VII (reigned 1137–1180) gave the title of duke and peer to William of Champagne, archbishop from 1176 to 1202, and the archbishops of Reims took precedence over the other ecclesiastical peers of the realm.
By the 10th century Reims had become a centre of intellectual culture. Archbishop Adalberon (in office 969 to 988), seconded by the monk Gerbert (afterwards (from 999 to 1003) Pope Silvester II), founded schools which taught the classical “liberal arts”. (Adalberon also played a leading role in the dynastic revolution which elevated the Capetian dynasty in the place of the Carolingians.)
The archiepiscopal palace, built between 1498 and 1509, and in part rebuilt in 1675, served as the residence of the kings of France on the occasion of their coronations. The salon (salle du Tau), where the royal banquet took place, has an immense stone chimney that dates from the 15th century. The chapel of the archiepiscopal palace consists of two storeys, of which the upper still (as of 2009) serves as a place of worship. Both the chapel and the salle du Tau have decorative tapestries of the 17th century, known as the Perpersack tapestries, after the Flemish weaver who executed them. The palace opened to the public in 1972 as a museum containing such exhibits as statues formerly displayed by the cathedral, treasures of the cathedral from past centuries, and royal attire from coronations of French kings.
The Temple protestant de Reims was designed by Charles Letrosne in a flamboyant neo-Gothic style. Originally the walls were lavishly decorated in Art Deco style by Gustave Louis Jaulmes, but in 1973 the walls were painted white, giving an austere appearance.
The Foujita Chapel (1966), designed and decorated by the Japanese School of Paris artist Tsuguharu Foujita, became famed for its frescos. It was listed as an historic monument in 1992.
The city hall (hôtel de ville), erected in the 17th century and enlarged in the 19th, features a pediment with an equestrian statue of Louis XIII (reigned 1610 to 1643).
The Surrender Museum is the building in which on 7 May 1945, General Eisenhower and the Allies received the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht.
The Carnegie library, the former public library built with money donated by Andrew Carnegie to the city of Reims after World War I, is a remarkable example of Art Deco in France.
The URCA (University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne|Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne) was created in 1548. This multidisciplinary university develops innovative, fundamental and applied research. It provides more than 18 000 students in Reims (22 000 in Champagne-Ardenne) with a wide initial undergraduate studies program which corresponds to society’s needs in all domains of the knowledge. The university also accompanies independent or company backed students in continuing professional development training. The Institut d’Etudes politiques de Paris, the leading French university in social and political sciences, also known as Sciences Po, opened a new campus in the Collège des Jésuites de Reims (fr) in 2010. This Euro-American campus will welcome more than 1500 students in 2015. In 2012 the first Reims Model United Nations was launched, which gathered 200 international students from all the Sciences Po campuses. Daniel Rondeau, the ambassador of France to UNESCO and a French writer, is the patron of the event. NEOMA Business School (former Reims Management School) is also one of the main schools in Reims.