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Soissons (Municipality, Aisne, France)

Flag of Soissons - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 19 December 2025

Presentation of Soissons
Flag of Soissons

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Presentation of Soissons

Soissons (28,667 inhabitants, 1,232 ha) is a commune and subprefecture in the department of Aisne.

Before the Roman conquest (58-52 BC), the site of Soissons belonged to the Celtic Suessiones people. Known as Noviodunum, it was surrounded by a high wall and a broad ditch. The place surrendered to Caesar. From 457 to 486, under Aegidius and his son Syagrius, Noviodunum was the capital of the Kingdom of Soissons,until it fell to the Frankish king Clovis I in 486 after the Battle of Soissons. Part of the Frankish territory of Neustria, the Soissons region, and the Abbey of Saint-Médard, founded in the sixth century, played an important political part during the rule of the Merovingian dynasty (447–751).

Attacked from 481 by Clovis, king of the Salian Franks, Syagrius was defeated in 486 at the Battle of Soissons, which would later give rise to the legend of the Vase of Soissons.
The Vase of Soissons was a semi-legendary sacred vase, probably in precious metal or a hardstone carving rather than pottery (though the material is not specified), which was kept in a cathedral in the Kingdom of Soissons during Late Antiquity. The existence and fate of the vase are known from Gregory of Tours (ca. 538–594), a Gallo-Roman historian and bishop. According to Gregory, the vase was of marvelous size and beauty and was stolen from a church in the pillage that followed the Battle of Soissons of 486, won by king Clovis I, who at that time had not yet converted to Christianity. Saint Remigius, the bishop of Reims, sent messengers to Clovis, begging that if the church might not recover any other of the holy vessels, at least this one might be restored. Clovis agreed to do so and therefore claimed the vase as his rightful part of the booty. One soldier disagreed and smashed the vase with his battle-axe. Clovis at first did not react to this and gave the broken vase to Remigius. A year later, however, he saw the soldier again, took the man's axe and threw it on the ground. The man bent down to pick up his axe, and Clovis smashed his skull with his own axe, commenting "Just as you did to the vase at Soissons!"

After the death of Clovis I in 511, Soissons was made the capital of one of the four kingdoms into which his states were divided. Eventually, the kingdom of Soissons disappeared in 613 when the Frankish lands were amalgamated under Chlothar II.

During the Hundred Years' War, French forces committed a notorious massacre of English archers stationed at the town's garrison, in which many of the French townsfolk were themselves raped and killed. The massacre of French citizens by French soldiers shocked Europe; Henry V of England, noting that the town of Soissons was dedicated to the saints Crispin and Crispinian, claimed to avenge the honour of the saints when he met the French forces at the Battle of Agincourt on Saint Crispin's Day 1415. The town was liberated by French troops under the command of Joan of Arc on 23 July 1429.

Between June 1728 and July 1729 it hosted the Congress of Soissons an attempt to resolve a long-standing series of disputes between the Kingdom of Great Britain and Spain which had spilled over into the Anglo-Spanish War of 1727–1729. The Congress was largely successful and led to the signing of the Treaty of Seville between them.

During World War I, the city came under heavy bombardment. There was mutiny after the disastrous Chemin des Dames offensive at the Second Battle of the Aisne. A statue erected with images of French soldiers killed in action in 1917 is behind the St Peter's Church, next to the Soissons Courthouse.
The town was considered destroyed at the end of the First World War and was awarded the 1914-1918 War Cross.

Olivier Touzeau, 19 December 2025

Flag of Soissons

Pascal Vagnat reported that the flag of Soissons is white with the town's logo in the center (personal observation in situ, 2007): source.

The logo is made of the coat of arms with the name of the commune in blue. The coat of arms is blazoned Azure a fleur-de-lis Argent. In their current form, with an Azure field, these arms were granted to the city of Soissons by order of King Louis XVIII, dated February 3, 1819. Previously, and notably in the Grand Armorial de France (1696), the field was Gules. In 1819, a letter from the representative of the Chancery noted the existence of identical arms for the city of Lille. It was in response to Lille's complaint that he proposed a compromise to the mayor of Soissons: arms on a blue background, rather than red.

Olivier Touzeau, 19 December 2025