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Origin and history

The abbey of Saint-Médard de Soissons, founded in 557 by the French king Clotaire I, housed the relics of Saint Médard. His son Sigebert I completed the church, where the two Merovingian rulers were buried. In 751, Pépin the Brief set up Childeric III there and made him a king, marking the birth of the Carolingian dynasty.

Under the Carolingians, the abbey became a major power centre, home to a monastic city of 400 religious, palaces, churches and schools. Free from taxes and with the right to exchange money, it surpassed secular seigneuries. The Evangeliar of Saint-Médard, illuminated manuscript of the ninth century, bears witness to its cultural influence. In 833 it was the theatre of the synod depositing Louis le Pieux.

Destroyed by the Vikings in 884 and 886, the abbey was rebuilt in the 11th century and then looted during the Wars of Religion (1567). The crypt, classified since 1875, and a 12th century chapel (classified in 1921) are the only remaining remains. His lay abbots, like Herbert II of Vermandois, illustrate his connection with political power until the Revolution.

The building, described by Eugene Lefèvre-Pontalis, included a three-nave basilica, two towers and a monumental porch. The crypt, 30 meters long, lay under the high altar. Excavations revealed in 2020 the sarcophagus of Alberic de Braine (abbé in the 13th century), entrusted to the restoration.

The abbey was a religious and intellectual pole, hosting prestigious scriptoria and relics (saint Sebastian, Saint Gregory). The monk Odilon († circa 920) wrote texts on translations of relics. Its decline began after the medieval destruction, before its definitive disappearance in 1793.

Today, the Abbaye Royale Saint-Médard association works to enhance the site, whose remains recall its central role in the Carolingian and medieval history of Picardia.

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