In 1294, the lords of Montmorency gave the village of Saint-Marcel to the abbey, and henceforth the monks were the sole masters of the town and its territory. Despite the Black Death-a plague that struck in 1348-the fourteenth century was a great period of prosperity for the town, whose expansion went hand-in-hand with the growth of its activities. The Lendit Fair reached its apex in the years between 1300 and 1360. In the town, construction continued unabated and the use of freestone spread to secular architecture. In the vicinity of the monumental complex, several vaulted cellars were built. In 1328, Saint-Denis contained 2,351 hearths Hearths
------------------------------------------------------
Group of people living in the same household, which was used as the basis for calculating taxes. or nearly 10,000 inhabitants. During this same period, the population of Paris was almost 200,000.