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Origin and history

The church of Saint-Lambert of Liessies is intimately linked to the Benedictine abbey founded in 751 by Wibert, Count of Poitou and cousin of Pépin the Brief. The latter offered Wibert land in northern Gauls, where he erected the abbey after a legendary hunt: the place where a wild boar he had killed fell was chosen to establish the monastery. The church housed from the beginning the relics of St Lambert, obtained by Gontrad, son of Wibert and first superior, from the bishop of Liège.

In the 9th century, the Normans ravaged Liessies in 881, massacring monks and servants, but sparing the church. The estates of the abbey were scattered, and only one priest remained. In the 11th century, the bishop of Cambrai intervened after a priest had buried a robber in the church, causing the canonization of Hiltrude, Wibert's sister, and the replacement of the canons by Benedictines. The abbey was restored thanks to Thierry d'Avesnes, repenting of looting other churches.

The 12th and 13th centuries saw the abbey enrich with relics (saint Etton, fragment of the True Cross) and become a place of pilgrimage. Despite repeated lootings, notably by Gautier d'Oisy, the monks obtained protection from the Count of Hainaut. The Hundred Years' War impoverished the abbey, but it underwent a revival in the 16th and 18th centuries under reformers like Louis de Blois-Châtillon, famous for its illuminations.

The French Revolution marked the end of the abbey: sold and partially destroyed in 1791, its relics were taken over by the inhabitants of Dompierre in 1789. The parish church of Saint-Lambert, classified as a Historical Monument in 1944, today preserves objects and works of art from the abbey. The Abbatial Park, with its hydraulics, is integrated into the ecomuseum of Avesnois.

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