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Origin and history

The Saint-Valery Abbey of Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, founded around 615 by Walric (Valery de Leuconay), a disciple of Saint Colomban, was one of the oldest Benedictine monasteries in the Diocese of Amiens. Located at the mouth of the Somme thanks to a gift from King Clotaire II, it played a major spiritual and political role from the early Middle Ages. His history was marked by Viking destruction, a legendary restoration by Hugues Capet in 981, and close ties with William the Conqueror, who prayed there before leaving to conquer England in 1066.

In the 13th century, the monks dried up the surrounding marshes, gaining land on the sea. During the Hundred Years' War, the abbey was partially destroyed by the English, then rebuilt before undergoing further damage: dispersal of the monks in 1451, destruction ordered by Louis XI in 1475, and fire by the Huguenots in 1568. In spite of these hazards, in the 17th century it became an intellectual home under the impulse of the congregation of Saint-Maur, welcoming scholars such as Fénelon, Abbé Commendataire, or the priests-poets Jacques Leclercq and Charles Prévost.

At the Revolution, the abbey, declared a national property, was sold to individuals such as Jean Ricot or Antoine-Augustin Renouard. Today, ruins of the south side and the absidial chapel (XIIIth century), remains of the cloister (XVIIth century), as well as the abbatial palace of 1752 and its wall of silex-damier, classified historical monuments remain. These elements recall its glorious past, between spirituality, royal power and cultural influence, before its definitive disappearance in the late eighteenth century.

Legend has it that before becoming king, Hugues Capet would have crossed the Bay of Somme on foot to repatriate the relics of Saint Valery and Saint Riquier, stolen by the Count of Flanders. This account, popularized by the monks of Saint-Riquier, illustrates the symbolic link between the abbey and the French monarchy. Similarly, William the Conqueror's stop in 1066, where a procession of the relics would have changed the winds in his favour, sealed his gratitude: he offered to the abbey the English domain of Takeley, later confirmed by Henry II.

The architecture of the Abbey reflects its successive reconstructions. The 13th century Abbatial Church, whose ruins remain, was alongside a 17th century cloister integrated into the 1752 Abbatial Hotel, a harmonious blend of brick and stone. The enclosure wall, characteristic with its flint and chalk-damher apparatus (XVIIth–XVIIIth centuries), still delimits the old monastic hold. These remains, though fragmentary, bear witness to the importance of Saint-Valery as a high place of picard monasticism, from its Merovingian foundation to its revolutionary suppression.

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