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Abbey of Saint-Germain en Auxerre

 

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Abbey of Saint-Germain en Auxerre



 
 
The Abbey of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre was a Benedictine
Benedictine

Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy....
 monastery in southern France, dedicated to its founder Saint Germain of Auxerre, the bishop of Auxerre, who died in 478. The abbey reached the apex of its cultural importance during the Carolingian
Carolingian

File:Charlemagne denier Mayence 812 814.jpgThe Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with its origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century....
 era; the source for its early history is an account of the Miracula Sancti Germani Episcopi Autissiodorensis ("Miracles of Saint Germain, Bishop of Auxerre") written before ca.






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The Abbey of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre was a Benedictine
Benedictine

Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy....
 monastery in southern France, dedicated to its founder Saint Germain of Auxerre, the bishop of Auxerre, who died in 478. The abbey reached the apex of its cultural importance during the Carolingian
Carolingian

File:Charlemagne denier Mayence 812 814.jpgThe Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with its origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century....
 era; the source for its early history is an account of the Miracula Sancti Germani Episcopi Autissiodorensis ("Miracles of Saint Germain, Bishop of Auxerre") written before ca. 880. The earliest surviving architectural remains are also of the ninth century.

In 1927, beneath the 17th-century frescoed plaster walls of the crypt, were discovered ninth-century wall frescoes, the only surviving large-scale paintings of their date in France to compare to the illuminated manuscripts.

During the Revolution
French Revolution

The French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudalism for the aristocracy and Roman Catholic Church clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Age of Enlightenment principles of cit...
, several bays of the nave
Nave

In Romanesque architecture and Gothic architecture Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and Church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar....
 were demolished and the secularized abbey was used as a hospital. The former nave extended beneath the present forecourt.

In the late twentieth century the abbey's residential and service buildings were remodeled as a museum, presenting prehistoric, Gallo-Roman and medieval finds from Auxerre. An exhibition in 1990 brought the abbey's cultural impact into focus.

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