Lagny Abbey
St Peter | |
People | |
---|---|
Founder(s) | Saint Fursey |
Site | |
Location | Lagny-sur-Marne, Seine-et-Marne, France |
Visible remains | most of the main buildings |
Public access | yes |
Lagny Abbey (St Peter’s Abbey, Lagny) was a monastery situated in the present-day commune of Lagny-sur-Marne in the department of Seine-et-Marne in France, in the eastern suburbs of Paris. It was founded in 644, refounded about 990 and after well over a millennium of existence (almost 1,150 years) was seized by the state at the French Revolution.
History
The original foundation was made about 644 by
The earlier monastery was reduced to ruins by the
The
- In 1107 Pope Paschal II visited the abbey, and in 1131 Pope Innocent II.
- Prior to his election as Abbot of Gembloux (1115), Anselm of Gembloux had been scholaster or headmaster of the ecclesiastical school at Lagny Abbey.[1]
- In 1163/1164 Pope Alexander III wrote to the abbot of Lagny requesting an annual payment of one ounce of gold, which was owed according to "a certain work among the books of the apostolic see", evidently the Liber Censuum, a large-scale record of revenues of the papacy covering the years 492-1192.[2]
Abbots
The early abbots seem to have been Irish missionaries and it is a difficult specialist task to piece together reliable details about their names, origins, and activity. It is also difficult to disentangle men with similar or identical names. An early figure who features in some accounts is Saint Eloquius (died 666), an Irish monk who may have been the successor of the founder, Saint Fursey, as Abbot.[3]
It is said that in the 10th century Saint Forannan, an Irish Bishop-Abbot who had been originally Bishop of Donoughmore, had St Eloquius’ relics taken to Waulsort Abbey in modern Belgium where he had become abbot.
Another early abbot, though apparently only for a time, was Saint Mombulus, also an Irishman, who left the abbey to evangelize in Picardy around Chauny before dying and being buried at Condren.[4]
In the period after the Normans had launched their
One was Arnold of Champagne, Abbot of Lagny from 1066 to 1106. He was the brother of Saint
In 1075 Abbot Arnold brought to the abbey on horseback from Italy important relics of his younger brother
Another member of the same family was
When the trial against the Templars began in England on 20 October 1309, among the judges were two papal inquisitors, one of whom was Sicard de Vaur, a canon of Narbonne and judge at Avignon, but the other inquisitor was Deodatus (Dieudonné), Abbot of Lagny.[9]
A Miracle by Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc visited the village twice. The second time, in 1430, she is said to have raised from the dead a child who had died three days before. This episode was taken into account in the cause for her canonization.[10] Joan herself had recounted the event in the course of the trial she underwent at Rouen on 3 March 1431:
- "The child was three days old. He was carried before the statue of Our Lady of Lagny. They told me the girls of the village were in front of the statue and that I should be so good as to go and pray God and Our Lady to give life back to the child, and I went there and prayed with the others. At the end, life reappeared in the child, who yawned three times and was baptized. Immediately afterwards he died and was buried in consecrated ground. They said there had been no sign of life in the child for three days. He was as black as my chain mail but after he had yawned his colour started to return. As for me, I was with the other young girls, kneeling, praying in front of Our Lady."[11]
When she was about to set off from Lagny for Senlis on 5 May 1430, it is said that Joan entrusted the abbey with six swords, of which one had been used by Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732, but these later disappeared.
Burials
- Herbert II of Troyes, born c. 950, died 995.
- Theobald II, Count of Champagne, born 1090/1095, died 10 January 1152. The tomb, in porphyry, was at least two-tiered, some 7–8 feet long and 4 feet wide.[12]
Abbey Church
In 1033 and especially in 1127 there was a severe outbreak among the population of Lagny of
The abbey church was damaged by fires in 1134, 1157, 1176, 1184 and 1205. After the last named the abbot of the time, Jean Britel, decided a reconstruction was necessary and extensive works were undertaken. Radical works were undertaken in 1686, shortening the church and erecting a new but flimsy facade, after which the church was reconsecrated. The unsafe condition of the building in 1750 forced further works which demolished the 12th century nave and bell tower, a new bell tower being erected. The revolutionary regime passed a law that each commune was to have only one church. Lagny then had four for its 1,723 inhabitants. Its choice fell upon adopting the abbey church as the new parish church and on 12 August 1792 the other churches were closed. At this period the abbey church was briefly named after Saint Fursey (the dedication of one of the former churches) but when the regime disavowed Christianity, the church as elsewhere became for a time a Temple of Reason.
Further restoration and refurbishment took place in 1860. The Franco-Prussian war brought serious damage when the church was occupied by German troops and French prisoners of war and all the wood in the church was stripped for firewood. At that period the
Fate of the Abbey Property
The Abbey's buildings were seized as state property during the French Revolution and in 1796 sold off. The monastery buildings became first a military hospital, and from 1842 the offices of the municipality, which they remain today.
The church, known now in French as the "Abbatiale Notre-Dame-des-Ardents et Saint-Pierre", has been classed as a national monument since 1886[13] and the rest of the monastery buildings since 1969.[14]
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Choir of former abbey church
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Lady Chapel
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Chapel of Saint Fursey
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Former abbey cloister, now municipal offices
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Entrance to the municipal offices.
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Joan of Arc, statue outside apse
Notes
- ^ Ursmer Berlière, Monasticon Belge, vol. 1, Maredsous, 1897, p. 18.
- ^ Ian Stuart Robinson, The Papacy, 1073-1198: Continuity and Innovation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990, p. 262.
- ^ John Lanigan, An Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, vol. II, Cumming, Dublin, 2nd edition 1829, p. 464.
- ^ Jules Caron, Histoire populaire de Chauny, 1878, pp. 46-47.
- ^ Cf. John F. Benton, The Court of Champagne under Henry the Liberal and Countess Marie, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, 1959.
- ^ Emile Brouette, Teobaldo, arcivescovo di Vienne, in Filippo Caraffa (dir.), Biblioteca Sanctorum, vol. XII, Città Nuova, Roma, 1969, col. 200-201.
- ^ Cf. Jean Mabillon, Translation des reliques de saint-Thibault d'Italie en France, in Acta Sanctorum OSB, t. VI: 1 July, Vita S. Theobaldi eremitae.
- ^ Theodore Evergates, Henry the Liberal: Count of Champagne, 1127-1181, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, p. 30.
- ^ Houses of Military Orders: The Temple, in William Page (ed.), A History of the County of London, vol. 1, London, 1909, pp. 485-491. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/london/vol1/pp485-491 [accessed 11 October 2017]; G.A. Campbell, The Knights Templars, Duckworth, London, 1937, p. 282; Malcolm Barber, The Trial of the Templars, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2nd edition 2006, p. 344; Helen J. Nicholson, The Proceedings against the Templars in the British Isles, vol. 2, Ashgate, Farnham, 2011, p. 2
- ^ Roger Caratini, Jeanne d'Arc. De Domrémy à Orléans et du bûcher à la légende, L'Archipel, Paris, 1999.
- ^ French text in Ernest Marie O'Reilly (ed.), Les deux procès de condamnation, les enquêtes et la sentence de réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc mis pour la première fois intégralement en français d'après les textes latins originaux officiels, Tome second, Plon, Paris, 1868, pp. 95-96: "L'enfant avait trois jours. Il fut apporté devant l'image de Notre Dame de Lagny. On me dit que les jeunes filles de la ville étaient devant cette image et que j'y voulusse bien y aller prier Dieu et Notre-Dame de rendre la vie à l'enfant, j'y allai et priai avec les autres. À la fin, “la vie reparut chez l'enfant” qui bailla trois fois et fut baptisé; aussitôt après, il mourut et fut inhumé en terre sainte. Il y avait trois jours, disait-on, que la vie n'était apparue dans l'enfant ; il était noir comme ma cotte, mais quand il eut baillé, la couleur commença à lui revenir. Pour moi, j'étais avec les autres jeunes filles à prier, à genoux, devant Notre Dame."
- ^ Theodore Evergates, Henry the Liberal: Count of Champagne, 1127-1181, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, p. 30.
- ^ Base Mérimée: PA00087044, Ministère français de la Culture. (in French) Eglise Notre-Dame-des-Ardents et Saint-Pierre
- ^ Base Mérimée: PA00087043, Ministère français de la Culture. (in French) Abbaye Saint-Pierre (ancienne)