Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés
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The Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, built in the fields (prés) just beyond the outskirts of Early Medieval Paris, was the burial place of Merovingian kings of Neustria. The Abbey was founded in the 6th century by the son of Clovis, Childebert I (ruled 511–558). Under royal patronage the Abbey became one of the richest in France; it housed an important scriptorium in the 11th century and remained a center of intellectual life in the French Catholic church until it was disbanded during the French Revolution. An explosion and a fire levelled the Abbey and its cloisters: the abbey church remains as the Église de Saint-German-des-Prés, Paris.
In 542, Childebert, while making war in Spain, raised his siege of Saragossa, when he heard that the inhabitants had placed themselves under the protection of Saint Vincent, martyr. In gratitude the bishop of Saragossa presented him with the saint's stole. When Childebert returned to Paris, he caused a church to be erected to house the relic, where he could see it across the fields.
In 588, St. Vincent's church was completed and dedicated by Germain, 23 December; on the very same day, Childebert died. Close by the church a monastery was erected. Its abbots had both spiritual and temporal jurisdiction over the suburbs of Saint-Germain (lasting till about the year 1670). The church was frequently plundered and set on fire by the Normans in the ninth century. It was rebuilt in 1014 and rededicated in 1163 by Pope Alexander III to Saint Germain of Paris, the canonized Bishop of Paris and Childeric's chief counsellor. Its choir, with its apsidal east end, provides an early example of flying buttresses.
It gave its name to the quarter of Saint-Germain-des-Prés that developed around the abbey. This area is also known as the Latin Quarter, because the Abbey donated some of its lands along the Seine—the Pré aux Clercs ("fields of the scholars") for the erection of buildings to house the University of Paris, where Latin was the lingua franca among students who arrived from all over Europe and shared no other language,
In the 17th century the district of Saint-Germain was among the most desirable on the Left Bank. Marguerite de Valois pressured the abbot to donate abbey land to her, too. She built a palace on it, and set a fashionable tone for the area that lasted until the Saint-Honoré district north of the Champs-Élysées eclipsed it in the early 18th century.
References
History of Saint Germain des Pres Church. [link]
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