Saint-Etienne of Dijon

Historic insight

The community of the regular canons of Saint-Etienne of Dijon represents a subject of study rich in possibilities; since the vast History… of the secular abbot Claude Fyot (1662 - 1721), the abbey hardly was the subject of fuller research - except the synthesis ever published of the Sébille canon, written at the beginning of the 20th century. In fact, the history of this community seems to occupy, in the local memory, a place similar to the situation of the church in the town of today: too much discrete and too little noticed.

This history is however not alleviating: Early middle ages until the 12th century, Saint-Etienne were the seat of a community of secular clerks - and punctually the place of residence of the bishops of Langres between the end of Ve and the end of the Life century. Reformed at the beginning of XIIe century to accommodate regular canons placed under patronage lately redécouvert of saint Augustin, Saint-Etienne preserved this mode until the 17th century, in spite of a notable change: the setting in commende of the abbey after the abbatiat of Antoine Chambellan (1497 - 1509). Secularized in 1613, the church was briefly the seat of the chapter cathédral after the creation of the diocese of Dijon (1731); the building was unused starting from the end of the 18th century, and this to the installation in part of its nave of the Chamber of commerce and Industry of Dijon, at the end of the 19th century.

Saint-Etienne thus for a long time lost any religious character, which contributed certainly to the obliteration of its “memory”. Moreover, the sober frontage of the modern time largely contrasts with the church close to Saint-Michel, or with Notre-Dame and Saint-Benign; the transformation of Saint-Etienne, of place of worship in profane place, like its relative discretion in the Dijonese urban landscape, make that the eminent role played by the abbey throughout the Middle Ages was partly forgotten. However, like its prestigious Saint-Benign rival, Saint-Etienne was an important urban abbey, equipped with many possessions in the area; moreover, the abbot of Saint-Etienne had under his control part of the Dijonese parochial network and surroundings, and held since the beginning of XIIe century the monopoly of the markets of the city. At the local level, the abbey was thus one of the religious establishments most important of the area, not only because of its “capacities” and of its statute, rather little represented in Burgundy, from community of regular canons, but still because of its almost complete independence compared to évêché of Langres.

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