Why was le quartier latin built?

Question

Why was le quartier latin built?

Answer 1

It was made of 'cheap' houses where students used to live in the Middle Ages. Most students had to learn latin and they also spoke it and this is the reason of its name.

Answer 2

In 52 BCE, after the Romans conquered the Parisii, a sub-tribe of the celtic Senones, who had founded the city in about 250 BCE, on what is now called the Ile de la Cite (where Notre Dame stands) they extended the town along the southern (or Left bank) of the Seine River.

Several currently existing streets where laid out in this Roman expansion of Paris including what is now called the Rue St. Jacques which was the principle Roman road south.

Remnants of this Roman city still exist in the form of the thermal baths that can be found at the Cluny Museum site and a Roman style area.

More information on the Roman city of Lutetia (as they called Paris) can be found here :http://www.paris.culture.fr/en/

The name the "Latin Quarter" comes from the medieval period, more than a thousand years after the Romans, when, in the 12trh century, the University of Paris took up residence  in the area.