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Origin and history

The St. Peter's church, built around 1100, is one of the oldest religious buildings in Ile-de-France. Built in limestone and sandstone in the form of a Latin cross (current nave and transept), it becomes a parish church and then royal, frequented by the kings of France staying at the nearby hunting lodge, the future castle of Fontainebleau. Its square, robust bell tower dates back to the 12th century, while its sandstone portal and porch awning date back to the 16th and 17th centuries.

In 1259, the parish was attached to the diocese of Sens. In the 16th century, Jean de Monceau, lord of Avon, abolished the apse to erect a flamboyant Gothic choir. A fire in 1892 destroyed some of the furniture, including the altarpiece of Henry II, leaving only two polychrome wooden statues (Vierge and Saint John). The porch, raised in the eighteenth century, houses a stone of threshold worn by nine centuries of passage, as well as the funeral slab of Jean Monaldeschi, squire of Christine of Sweden murdered in 1657.

Ranked a historical monument in 1908, the church retains remarkable elements: stained glass windows of the sixteenth and twentieth centuries (including a tribute to the deportees), a Baptistery of 1616, and walled tombstones, such as that of Stephen Bézout, an 18th century mathematician. Its furniture includes 17th and 18th century statues, including Saint Aubin and Saint Louis, as well as stalls. The vault in front of the choir, dug in 1690, housed the Trinitarians, parish priests from Avon until the Revolution.

Close to the Carmelite convent, the church is located in the historic centre of Avon, at an altitude of 73,608 meters. Its history reflects the links between royal power, parish life and funeral heritage, with notable burials such as that of Edme-Louis Daubenton, a naturalist. Modern stained glass windows also evoke local figures, such as Father Jacques, a deported resistor.

The building, a communal property, remains a place of memory, illustrated by cultural representations such as the painting of the Church of Avon at Fontainebleau (1935) by Alexander Benois or the writings of Jules Massenet, who celebrated his marriage there in 1912.

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