1328

The year 1328 is given as the date of the Montfaucon Gallows, an imposing execution structure outside Paris. Its age lends historical depth to the later description of the monument: by the end of the fifteenth century it was already dilapidated, yet its presence still darkened the surrounding landscape and embodied the city’s punitive authority.

The date and the monument

The account dates the Montfaucon Gallows to 1328. It does not identify a particular construction episode or explain the circumstances of its founding; the year serves instead as the structure’s historical anchor. In the late fifteenth century, the gallows stood on a low limestone rise beyond the walls of Paris, between the faubourgs of the Temple and Saint-Martin. Its scale and position made it visible across the surrounding area.

Condition by the late fifteenth century

By the end of that century, the structure was described as badly deteriorated: its beams were worm-eaten, its chains rusted, its pillars mould-covered, and the joints between the stone courses cracked. Grass had grown over the unused platform. The contrast between its formidable original design and its neglect makes 1328 more than a bare date: it marks the long life of an institution whose physical condition had declined while its association with punishment remained potent.

A landmark in Paris’s legal landscape

The Montfaucon Gallows belonged to a city in which punishment and protection operated side by side. Churches and other sites could provide sanctuary, making a fugitive safe within their boundaries, but execution and other penalties waited beyond them. That protection could become confinement, and its limits were enforced by the surrounding machinery of justice. The account also describes Paris as divided among distinct jurisdictions, with royal authority overarching the City, the Town, and the University. Against this fragmented legal order, the gallows dated to 1328 stands as a durable emblem of public punishment, not as evidence that the city’s later jurisdictional arrangements began in that year.