Anchin Abbey
L'abbaye d'Anchin | |
 A sixteenth-century view of the abbey | |
| Monastery information | |
|---|---|
| Order | Benedictine |
| Established | 1079 |
| Disestablished | 1790 |
Anchin Abbey was a Benedictine monastery founded in 1079 in the commune of Pecquencourt in what is now the Nord department of France.
History
Aquicintum, later Aquacignium and then Anchin (or Enchin), was a 25 hectare island forming part of the territory of Pecquencourt, between the marais, the river Scarpe and the Bouchart brook.[1]
The hermit and confessor Gordaine[2] built his hermitage on the island in the 8th century)[3] and is sometimes considered the abbey's founder: an anonymous 12th century painting in the church of Saint-Gilles at Pecquencourt shows his miracles.[4]
In 1096 the abbey was the site of a large tournament, the Tournoi d'Anchin, at which 300 knights from Ostrevent, Hainaut, Cambrésis and Artois fought.[5] An important cultural centre from the 11th to 13th centuries, it produced many manuscripts and charters.[6]
In 1562 Anchin College (now the Lycée Albert-Châtelet) was built by the Jesuits under the abbey's patronage. It was suppressed in the French Revolution, declared state property by the decree of 28 October 1790, sold to François-Joseph Tassart of Douai on 27 March 1792 for 47,700 livres and demolished later that year.
Treasures
A 13th century gilded copper priest's cross, found at Anchin in 1872 in a tomb, is now in the musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes. The Anchin Retable is a polyptych on wood of c.1551 by the artist Jehan Bellegambe, now held at the musée de la Chartreuse de Douai.[7] The Lille painter Joseph Wamps also produced many works for the abbey, including many sketches destroyed by fire in the First World War.
Notes
- ^ Enée-Aimé Escalier, L'abbaye d'Anchin, 1079-1792, L. Lefort, Lille, 1852, p. 13 (Google Books)
- ^ feast day 16 October
- ^ forum - orthodoxe .com : saints for 16 October
- ^ Ministère de la culture - Palissy
- ^ Paul André Roger, Archives historiques et ecclésiastiques de la Picardie et de l'Artois, Duval & Herment, Amiens, 1842, p. 265-268 (Google Books)
- ^ Jean-Pierre Gerzaguet, ed., Les chartes de l'abbaye d'Anchin (1079-1201), Brepols, Turnhout (Belgium), 2005, collection ARTEM, numéro 6, 511 p. ISBN 2-503-52172-X
- ^ Flemish Primitives at the musée de Douai Archived December 10, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
References
- Jean-Pierre Gerzaguet, L'abbaye d'Anchin de sa fondation (1079) au XIVe siècle : Essor, vie et rayonnement d'une grande communauté bénédictine, Septentrion, 1998, ISBN 2-85939-522-9.
