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Origin and history

The Saint-Pierre d'Orbais Abbey, located in the Marne, was built in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. His late Romanesque abbey church was consecrated to the apostles Peter and Paul under Benedictine rule. According to Flodoard, it was founded in 677 or 680 by Saint Reole, bishop of Reims, with the support of King Thierry III of Neustria, on lands given by the latter. Six monks from Rebais were settled there, and the abbey was placed under the direct jurisdiction of the archbishops of Reims, an addiction confirmed by pontifical bubbles and royal privileges.

Over the centuries, the abbey received protections and donations, including Childebert IV, Charles le Chauve (c. 860), and Archbishops of Reims such as Vula faire. It housed public schools and a seminar attracting scholars, including Gottschalk. However, it suffered serious damage during the Norman invasions (882-883), when it temporarily sheltered the relics of St.Remi, and then during the Hungarian raids in 937, which looted and rubbed it. The destruction continued during the Hundred Years' War under Charles VII and during the Wars of Religion (1550, 1552, 1568), where the Reformers ravaged it several times.

From 1516 on, the abbey passed under the regime of the abbots commundataires, losing its monastic autonomy. In 1567, she was besieged by the Protestant troops of Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, and her prior, Nicolas de la Croix, had to surrender after two days of resistance. The archives, partially looted by the latter, were destroyed in 1567 by the Huguenots. In 1666, with only four older monks, the abbey was affiliated with the congregation of Saint-Maur thanks to Dom Bernard Audebert's intervention. Despite repairs in the 17th century, part of the nave collapsed in 1651, and consolidation work was undertaken in 1702 to avoid its ruin.

Classified as a historical monument in 1840 for its abbey church and in 1962 for its capitular hall, the abbey preserves stained glass windows of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, largely restored, as well as paintings of the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. His current plan is truncated, having lost six spans of his nave and part of his conventual buildings. Controversies over its construction persist, with some attributing its construction to Jean d'Orbais, architect of Reims Cathedral, although the missing archives make this hypothesis uncertain. Today, its remains bear witness to a rich past marked by repeated destruction and partial reconstruction.

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