Editing Catacombs of Paris (section)

===Paris's cemeteries===
[[File:Saints Innocents 1550 Hoffbauer.jpg|thumb|320px|[[Holy Innocents' Cemetery|Les Innocents cemetery]] in 1550]]
[[Paris]]'s earliest burial grounds were to the southern outskirts of the Roman-era Left Bank city. In ruins after the [[Western Roman Empire]]'s 5th-century end and the ensuing [[Franks|Frankish]] invasions, Parisians eventually abandoned this settlement for the marshy Right Bank: from the 4th century, the first known settlement there was on higher ground around a Saint-Etienne church and burial ground (behind the present {{Lang|fr|[[Hôtel de Ville, Paris|Hôtel de Ville]]|italic=no}}), and urban expansion on the Right Bank began in earnest after other ecclesiastical landowners filled in the marshlands from the late 10th century. Thus, instead of burying its dead away from inhabited areas as usual, the Paris Right Bank settlement began with cemeteries near its centre.<ref>{{cite web |title=Les Catacombes de Paris |url=https://www.travelsspots.com/hidden-secrets-of-les-catacombes-de-paris/ |website=Unveiling the Hidden Secrets of Les Catacombes de Paris}}</ref>

The most central of these cemeteries, a burial ground around the 5th-century Notre-Dame-des-Bois church, became the property of the Saint-Opportune parish after the original church was demolished by the 9th-century [[Normans|Norman]] invasions. When it became its own parish associated with the church of the "[[Holy Innocents' Cemetery|Saints Innocents]]" from 1130, this burial ground, filling the land between the present [[Rue Saint-Denis (Paris)|rue Saint-Denis]], [[rue de la Ferronnerie]], [[rue de la Lingerie]] and the [[rue Berger]], had become the city's principal cemetery.
By the end of the same century, Saints Innocents was neighbour to the principal Parisian marketplace [[Les Halles]], and already filled to overflowing. To make room for more burials, the long-dead were exhumed and their bones packed into the roofs and walls of "charnier" galleries built inside the cemetery walls. By the end of the 18th century, the central burial ground was a {{convert|2|m|ft|adj=mid|-high|abbr=off|spell=in}} mound of earth filled with centuries of Parisian dead, plus the remains from the [[Hôtel-Dieu de Paris|Hôtel-Dieu]] hospital and the Morgue; other Parisian parishes had their own burial grounds, but the conditions in Saints Innocents were the worst.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.citymetric.com/skylines/catacombs-paris-underneath-city-light-lies-chamber-darkness-and-death-1541|title=The Catacombs of Paris: Underneath the city of light lies a chamber of darkness and death - CityMetric|website=www.citymetric.com|access-date=2018-08-24|archive-date=2018-08-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180824101807/https://www.citymetric.com/skylines/catacombs-paris-underneath-city-light-lies-chamber-darkness-and-death-1541|url-status=live}}</ref>

A series of ineffective decrees limiting the use of the cemetery did little to remedy the situation, and it was not until the late 18th century that it was decided to create three new large-scale suburban burial grounds on the outskirts of the city, and to condemn all existing parish cemeteries within city limits.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/paris-catacombs-180950160/|title=Beneath Paris' City Streets, There's an Empire of Death Waiting for Tourists|first=Natasha|last=Geiling|access-date=2018-08-24|archive-date=2018-08-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180824034430/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/paris-catacombs-180950160/|url-status=live}}</ref>