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Origin and history

The Saint Lucian Abbey, founded around 580 by Abbé Evrost on the tomb of the martyr Lucien de Beauvais, became a place of pilgrimage known for its relics, supposed to heal madness and epilepsy. Destroyed by the Normans in the 9th century, it was restored thanks to royal and episcopal gifts, then rebuilt in stone in the 12th century. His abbey, dedicated in 1109, became the heart of a congregation of dependent priories, some in England.

In the 14th century, the abbey suffered the ravages of the Hundred Years' War: burned in 1346 by Edward III, it was fortified and partially rebuilt, including a vaulted refectory and a defensive enclosure. In the 15th century, the regime of commende settled, marking the end of the abbots elected by the monks. The trading abbots, like Antoine Du Bois (1492) or Odet de Coligny (protesting in 1560), exploited his resources, while the monks attempted to return to the Benedictine rule in the seventeenth century under the impulse of the congregation of Saint-Maur.

The abbey was dissolved in 1790 during the Revolution. Its buildings, sold as national property, were demolished as early as 1791, with the exception of remains such as the entrance gate (XII century) and a 15th century tower, classified as historical monuments. The relics of Saint Lucien, transferred to the cathedral of Beauvais, were destroyed in 1793. Today, the site, a municipal property, preserves scattered furniture elements: stalls at the museum of Cluny, a lying in Nogent-sur-Oise, and a pulpit to preach in the cathedral.

The abbey played a central role in the religious and economic life of Beauvais, having up to twenty parishes and extensive lands. Its decline in the eighteenth century reflected tensions between Jansenists and ecclesiastical authorities, before its definitive suppression. The excavations and archives (such as those of Deladreue and Mathon, 1871) bear witness to its historical importance, despite the almost total disappearance of its buildings.

The current remains, listed or classified between 1930 and 1965, include fragments of the enclosure wall and a 15th century tower. The site, occupied successively by a spinning, military and then social housing, illustrates the urban changes of Beauvais. Archaeological studies (such as those of Claire Fons, 1975) have partially reconstructed his architectural plan and evolution, from Romanesque origins to his latest classical transformations.

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