By the end of the sixth century two hundred and thirty-eight monastic institutions had been founded in Gaul, and from the sixth to the eighth century, eighty-three churches were built. The monasteries were so many nurseries of the industry, knowledge and learning which had not perished in the barbarian invasions; so many cities of refuge from violence and rapine, where the few who thirsted after righteousness and burned with charity might find shelter and protection. "Every letter traced on paper," said an old abbot, "is a blow to the devil." The ecclesiastical and monastic schools took the place of the destroyed Roman day-schools, and whatever modicum of learning the Frankish courts could boast of, was due to the monks and nuns of their time; for some at least of these potentates when not absorbed in the gratification of their lusts, their vengeance, greed or ambition, were possessed by nobler instincts.
To St. Germain of Autun, made bishop in 555, Paris owes one of her earliest ecclesiastical foundations. His influence over Childebert, king of Paris, was great. He obtained an order that those who refused to destroy pagan idols in their possession were to answer to the king, and when Childebert and his warriors, seized by an irresistible fighting impulse, marched into Spain, and were bought off the siege and sack of Saragossa by the present of the tunic of St. Vincent, he induced the king to found the abbey and church of St. Vincent (St. Germain des Prés), to receive the relic and a great part of the spoil of Toledo, consisting of jewels, golden chalices, books and crucifixes of marvellous craftsmanship. In the same reign was begun on the site of the present sacristy of Notre Dame a great basilica, dedicated to St. Stephen, so magnificently decorated that it was compared to Solomon's Temple for the beauty and the delicacy of its art. The church of Ste. Marie or Notre Dame, already existing in 365, stood on a site extending westward into the present Place du Parvis Notre Dame. During this great outburst of zeal and devotion, another monastery (St. Vincent le Rond), was established and dedicated to St. Vincent, which subsequently became associated with the name of the earlier St. Germain of Auxerre (l'Auxerrois).