Formerly lying along the
cardo of Roman
Lutetia, this street was a main axial road of
medieval Paris, as the buildings that still front it attest. It is the historic starting point, at no. 252, the
Église Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, for pilgrims leaving Paris to make their way along the
Chemin de Saint-Jacques that led eventually to
Santiago de Compostela (James, Jacques, Jacob, and Iago being names of the same saint in English, French, Latin, and Spanish, respectively). However, the introduction of the
Boulevard Saint-Michel, constructed through this old quarter of Paris by
Baron Haussmann, relegated the roughly parallel Rue Saint-Jacques to a backstreet. The Paris base of the
Dominican Order was established in 1218 under the leadership of Pierre Seilhan (or Seila) in the Chapelle Saint-Jacques, close to the Porte Saint-Jacques, on this street; this is why the Dominicans were called
Jacobins in Paris. Thus the street's name is indirectly responsible for the
Jacobin Club in the
French Revolution getting that name (being based in a former Jacobin monastery, itself located elsewhere).
Johann Heynlin and
Guillaume Fichet established the first
printing press in France, briefly at the
Sorbonne and then on this street, in the 1470s. The second printers in Paris were Peter Kayser and Johann Stohl at the sign of the Soleil d'Or in the Rue Saint-Jacques, from 1473. The proximity of the Sorbonne led many later booksellers and printers to set up shop here also. == Notable sites ==