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Origin and history

The St Peter's church of Auxerre, originally dedicated to St Peter from the 6th century, occupies a site occupied without interruption since the Merovingian era. Mentioned as basilica under Bishop Aunaire (572-605), it became a collegiate of canons in the 8th and 6th centuries, then an Augustinian abbey in 1170 under the impulse of Bishop Guillaume de Toucy. Damaged during the Sarrasin invasions, it was restored several times, notably in 1107 by Bishop Humbaud.

In the 16th century, the abbey went through a crisis requiring a reform imposed by Bishop Francis of Dinteville II in 1548. Laurent Petifout, abbot of Saint-Père, played a key role in this reform and in managing religious tensions during the religious wars, notably under the episcopate of Jacques Amyot (1570-1593). The church was desecrated in 1567 by Calvinists and its scattered relics.

The major reconstruction of the church, carried out between 1630 and 1665 by architects Isaac Gillot, Blaise Chiriot and Laligne, gives it its present appearance: a rectangular plan with circular bedside, a nave of 58.80 m and a flamboyant square tower begun in 1530. The facade, designed by Jean Métezeau at the end of the 16th century, superimposed the ionic, Corinthian and composite orders, marking an innovative synthesis between classicism and Gothicism.

Ranked a historic monument in 1862, the church was also the first aggregate parish in 1838 at the Archiconfrérie de Notre-Dame des Victoires. The present nave, inaugurated in 1894 after the destruction of the medieval nave, houses the funeral of poet Mary Christmas in 1967. Its architecture, combining openwork bows and curvilinear bays, bears witness to its stylistic evolution.

Archaeological excavations in 2007 confirmed a continued occupation of the site since late antiquity, revealing traces of Merovingian habitat. The medieval cemetery, originally located in the west, gradually approached the church between the eighth and ninth centuries. The building thus embodies nearly 1,500 years of Auxerrois religious and architectural history.

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