Abbatiale et Sainte-Chapelle de Saint-Germer-de-Fly

Saint-Germer-de-Fly

Germer was a great Frankish lord, counsellor to King Dagobert, married and a father. Touched by God's call, he left the court, became a monk and founded around 655, in the little valley of Fly on the edge of the Pays de Bray, the monastery that would bear his name; tradition tells that he first lived as a hermit on an island in the Epte before gathering his disciples. Ravaged by the Vikings in the 9th and 10th centuries, the abbey was reborn in the 11th century and shone through its school of theology. The present abbey church, raised in the 12th century, is a precious milestone of early Gothic art: its galleries and ambulatory herald the great neighbouring cathedrals of Beauvais and Rouen. But the jewel of the place lies elsewhere: after 1250, an ambitious abbot had a Sainte-Chapelle built in imitation of the one Saint Louis had just completed in Paris for the Crown of Thorns — the same Rayonnant elegance, the same walls of glass. Miraculously spared, it keeps its 13th-century stained glass, including a rose window blazing with light, which makes it one of the best-preserved "Saintes-Chapelles" in France. Reduced to a simple parish church after the Revolution, the great abbey church still watches, out of all proportion, over a village of a few hundred souls — a little-known marvel halfway between the pastures of Normandy and the hills of Picardy.

Getting there : Centre of the village of Saint-Germer-de-Fly, on the D109 between Gournay-en-Bray and Beauvais, beside the Avenue Verte London–Paris. Free admission; information from the Pays de Bray tourist office.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound