Anchin Abbey

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.

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.

The hermit and confessor Gordaine built his hermitage on the island in the 8th century) and is sometimes considered the abbey's founder: an anonymous 12th century painting in the church of Saint-Gilles at Pecquencourt shows his miracles.

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. An important cultural centre from the 11th to 13th centuries, it produced many manuscripts and charters.

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.

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. The Lille painter Joseph Wamps also produced many works for the abbey, including many sketches destroyed by fire in the First World War.