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4 unusual facts about Chelles Abbey


Chelles

Chelles Abbey, located in the commune until its destruction in 1796

Chelles Abbey

The abbey swiftly became one of the most favored monasteries for English royal princesses in Francia to be sent to for their religious instruction, along with other convents in the Paris basin such as at Les Andelys (built in 511 AD, the first convent in France) and Fécamp Abbey (built by Dux Waningus in 658).

Abbess Gisela was the one person to send Alcuin the news at Tours of her brother Charlemagne’s official coronation.

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.


Berthild of Chelles

When Saint Bathildis, the wife of Clovis II, founded the abbey of Chelles, which Saint Clotildis had first instituted near the Marne, she asked Saint Thelchildis to set up a new community there with the most experienced and virtuous nuns of Jouarre to direct the novices in the monastic order.


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