Abbey of Chelles

Chelles Abbey (French: Abbaye Notre-Dame-des-Chelles) was a Frankish monastery founded c. 658 during the early medieval period. It was intended initially as a monastery for women; then its reputation for great learning grew, and with the afflux of men wishing to follow the monastic life, a parallel male community was established, creating a double monastery.

The abbey stood in the Val-de-Marne near Paris (in modern Meaux) until it fell victim to the disestablishment of the Catholic Church in 1792 during the French Revolution and was dismantled. The abbey housed an important scriptorium and held the advantage of powerful royal connections throughout the Carolingian era.

Before its religious designation, the site of the abbey, Cala (Gaulish "a collection of pebbles"; modern Chelles, Seine-et-Marne) had held a royal Merovingian villa. Queen Clotilde, the wife of Clovis I, had previous built a small chapel there dedicated to Saint George circa 511.

King Chilperic I and his wife, Fredegund, frequently resided at Cala; Chilperic was assassinated in 584 while hunting there.

The Queen-Saint Balthild, wife of King Clovis II (639-657/658), an Anglo-Saxon aristocrat who had been taken to Gaul as a slave, founded the abbey in 658 on the ruins of the Clothilde's chapel as a monastery for women. She gave the first of two great endowments to its construction, enabling the abbey and a large new Church of the Holy Cross to be built. Though no charters survive, in "Life of Saint Balthild", there are references to the gifts she made to the abbey.

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