Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Saint-Pierre de Lagny Abbey finds its origins around 644, when Fursy de Peronne founded a primitive monastery on land offered by Erchinoald. Quickly enriched by donations from Clovis II and Queen Bathilde, the abbey acquired local importance before being destroyed by the Normans in the ninth century. Its reconstruction between 990 and 1018, initiated by Counts Herbert II and Étienne I of Troyes, culminates with his consecration in 1019 by Robert Le Pieux, who places there a nail of the True Cross, now disappeared.

Under the protection of the Counts of Champagne from 1022 onwards, the abbey prospered and welcomed personalities such as Arnoul de Champagne, abbot from 1066 to 1106, who brought back in 1075 the relics of his brother Saint Thibaut. These relics inspire the foundation of Saint-Thibault-des-Vignes (1081) and propagate the cult of this saint in France. The abbey, looted in 1567 during the Wars of Religion, then lost its treasures, including the royal relic.

Sold as a national property in 1796, the abbey became a military hospital before building the town hall of Lagny-sur-Marne from 1842. His abbey Notre-Dame-des-Ardents, listed as a historic monument in 1886, and the rest of the buildings, registered in 1969, bear witness to his prestigious past. Among the personalities buried on site is Bétin Cassinel, secretary of Philip the Bel, who died in 1312.

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