Noyon lies on the river Oise, about 95 kilometers (60 mi) northeast of Paris. The Oise Canal and the Canal du Nord pass through the commune. Noyon station is served by regional trains to Creil, Saint-Quentin, Compiègne and Paris.
The Gallo-Romans[citation needed] founded the town as Noviomagus (Celtic for "New Field" or "Market"). As several other cities shared the name, it was distinguished by specifying the people living in and around it. The town is mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary as being 27 Roman miles from Soissons and 34 Roman miles from Amiens, but d'Anville noted that the distance must be in error, Amiens being further and Soissons closer than indicated.[4]
By the Middle Ages, the town's Latin name had mutated to Noviomum. The town was strongly fortified; some sections of the Roman walls still remained in late antiquity. This may explain why, around the year 531, bishop Medardus moved his seat from Vermand in the Vermandois to Noyon. (Another option was to move his seat to Saint-Quentin but the wine produced in Noyon was thought to be much better than that produced in Saint-Quentin.[5] Other explanations are that Medardus was born near the town, at Salency, or that the place is nearer to Soissons, which was one of the royal capitals of the Merovingians.) The bishop of Noyon was also bishop of Tournai from the seventh century until Tournai was raised to a separate diocese 1146.[6]
Pierre Robert Olivétan (c. 1506 - 1538), born in Noyon, first to translate the Bible into the French language starting from the Hebrew and Greek texts.
Robert Louis Stevenson as part of An Inland Voyage visited Noyon on 17 September 1876. He was greatly impressed with the cathedral stating it has "the happiest inspiration of mankind, a thing as specious as a statue at first glance, yet on examination, as lively and interesting as a forest in detail…. I sat outside of my hotel and the sweet groaning thunder of the organ floated out of the church like a summons "[14]
^Peter Lasko, Ars Sacra, 800-1200, (Yale University Press, 1994), 1.
^Laon, Kim M. Magon, Northern Europe: International Dictionary of Historic Places, Vol. 2, ed. Trudy Ring, Noelle Watson, Paul Schellinger, (Routledge, 1995), 397.
^Karl Leyser, Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: The Carolingian and Ottonian Centuries, ed. Timothy Reuter, (Hambledon Press, 1994), 48 note110.
^Dudo (Dean of St. Quentin), History of the Normans, transl. Eric Christiansen, (The Boydell Press, 1998), 184 note82.
^George A. Rothrock, The Huguenots: A Biography of a Minority, (Nelson-Hall, Inc., 1979), 48.
^ abA Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East, Vol. II, ed. Spencer C. Tucker, (ABC-CLIO, 2010), 518.
Smith, William, ed. (1857). "Noviomagus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Vol. 2. London: John Murray. pp. 449–450.
