Saint-Séverin Church, in the Latin Quarter

Visiting the Saint-Séverin Church feels like taking a step back in time to the old Paris. To reach the historic site, you wander through narrow, winding streets of the 5th arrondissement. Once inside, the church itself transports you to a bygone era, immersed in a medieval atmosphere, with its square bell tower and many gothic gargoyles.

Built during the Merovingian era around 650 AD, the Saint-Séverin Church pays tribute to the hermit monk Saint-Séverin. It stands as the oldest church on the Left Bank. Destroyed by the Vikings, it was rebuilt in the 13th century in a striking Flamboyant Gothic style that can still be admired today.

Quickly, Saint-Séverin Church becomes the church of the students from the University of Paris, established by Philip Augustus at the end of the 12th century, serving as the site for their assemblies. It also earns the nickname church of travelers due to its proximity to the bridge connecting the Left Bank to the Île de la Cité. A fire partially devastates the church in 1448, but it is beautifully restored afterward.

During the French Revolution, the Saint-Séverin Church—like most churches—lost its function as a place of worship and was repurposed first as an arsenal for gunpowder, then as a storage site for fodder and bells. Notably, Macée, one of the oldest bells in Paris, cast in 1412, still hangs today beneath the church’s tower!

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During your visit, be sure to take a stroll through the garden, which from the 15th century served as a burial ground for Parisian dignitaries and common folk alike. Archaeologists have even uncovered evidence of medieval sarcophagi, confirming that a cemetery existed on the site long before the 15th century! Also not to be missed are the double ambulatory and the stunning inside the church.

And just a little anecdote: it was in the cemetery of the Saint-Séverin Church that the first-ever surgical procedure for kidney stones took place in January 1474. King Louis XI approved the operation, which was carried out on a condemned prisoner—promising a pardon if the operation succeeded. And succeed it did!