Abbey of St. Vaast

The abbey of Saint -Vaast was founded in the year 667 on the hill La Madeleine near Arras in northern France, at the later canonized Vaast used to withdraw. The abbey stood the Benedictine rule and became the nucleus of the growing around her village.

Legend

According to legend, came Vaast (Latin: Vedastus, Vedastes ) after he converted King Clovis I, to Arras, where city and church lay in utter neglect. Vaast cleaned the interior of the church, when suddenly inhabitants of the city called him for help because a bear man and beast tore. According to legend, ordered Vaast the animal in the name of God, to leave the place. The wild bear was tame, twisted, and was never seen again.

In gratitude for God's help Vaast presented with his disciples, the Church restores and came daily to prayer in a chapel which he had built at the place where the miracle had happened. Vaast died in 540 and was buried in the restored Church.

Abbey

A century later, the Holy Gery fulfilled the last wish of the deceased and had converted his bones in the chapel, which then became the destination of many pilgrims. A community of monks who settled here and the Rule of St. Benedict of Nursia subjugated, became the nucleus of the abbey. The Frankish king Theodoric III. († 691 ) was buried in the church. 783 burned the monastery; Charlemagne ordered its restoration. Three adjacent churches were built, and the largest was consecrated in the name of Saint- Vaast.

In the Early Middle Ages ( 9-10. Century) emerged in the Abbey, the Annales Vedastini.

In the 18th century led Vigor de BRIOIS and the Cardinal Rohan, a benefice of Saint- Vaast, by restoring the now heavily ruined abbey. As the old cathedral of Arras, Notre Dame, was also expire, presented a decree Napoléon Bonaparte the Bishop of Arras, Hugues -Robert -Jean -Charles de La Tour d' Auvergne Lauragais, the abbey church known as the Cathedral of Arras available. Spared from the French Revolution church was destroyed in the battle for the city during the First World War in July 1915, and later rebuilt identically again. The abbey of Saint -Vaast is now considered as the largest ensemble of religious architecture of the 18th century.

The Abbey is now the Art Museum and the library are housed.

Important abbots and Laienäbte

• Rado to 776 - before 797 Lord Chancellor
• Adalung, 808-834, Abbot of Lorsch Abbey
• Adalhard to 849, lay abbot
• Hugo Abbas († 886 ) to 874 ( Guelph )
• Rudolf, 874-892, son of Eberhard of Friuli ( Unruochinger )
• Hugh Capet († 996 ), 987 King of France ( Robertiner, Capetian )
• Robert Briçonnet