- published: 13 Jul 2015
- views: 14322
Coordinates: 49°33′50″N 3°37′28″E / 49.5639°N 3.6244°E / 49.5639; 3.6244
Laon (French pronunciation: [lɑ̃]) is the capital city of the Aisne department in Picardy in northern France.
The hilly district of Laon, which rises a hundred metres above the otherwise flat Picardy plain, has always held strategic importance. In the time of Julius Caesar there was a Gallic village named Bibrax where the Remis (inhabitants of the country round Reims) had to meet the onset of the confederated Belgae. Whatever may have been the precise locality of that battlefield, Laon was fortified by the Romans, and successively checked the invasions of the Franks, Burgundians, Vandals, Alans and Huns. At that time it was known as Alaudanum or Lugdunum Clavatum.
Remigius, archbishop of Reims, who baptised Clovis, was born in the Laonnais, and it was he who, at the end of the fifth century, instituted the bishopric of Laon. Thenceforward Laon was one of the principal towns of the kingdom of the Franks, and the possession of it was often disputed. Charles the Bald had enriched its church with the gift of very numerous domains. About 847 the Irish philosopher John Scotus Eriugena appeared at the court of Charles the Bald, and was appointed head of the palace school. Eriugena spent the rest of his days in France, probably at Paris and Laon. After the fall of the Carolingians Laon took the part of Charles of Lorraine, their heir, and Hugh Capet only succeeded in making himself master of the town by the connivance of the bishop, who, in return for this service, was made second ecclesiastical peer of the kingdom.
well he fell from the skies
with a sense he devised
and he dropped out of school
with his evil sunglasses
and the desert he crossed
was a picture to see
roll in the sand
he had it all in his hand
(chorus)
you're gonna live forever
we can see you roll in the sand
he was a bungling thief
turning fiction to fact
and back at the hill
they want him to act