St Winnoc’s Abbey, Bergues: A Medieval Benedictine Monastery in France
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- County of Flanders, French
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page15 sections
History
St Winnoc’s Abbey was a medieval Benedictine monastery in Bergues, France, founded on the Groenberg in the early eleventh century after a late seventh-century Christian monastery established by Saint Winnoc had been destroyed. The abbey became a pilgrimage centre, a major landholder, and an institution with extensive ecclesiastical and legal privileges in Flanders.
Foundation and Benedictine refoundation
Saint Winnoc, a seventh-century Christian missionary and monastic founder associated with coastal Flanders, established a monastery near the woods of Wormhout in the late seventh century. Heremard, lord of Wormhout, donated the land and intended the foundation to include both a monastery and a hospice for poor people, the sick, and pilgrims. Winnoc served as its first abbot and died there in 717.
Viking raids destroyed the original foundation at Wormhout. Around 899 to 910, Baldwin II of Flanders promoted a new church in the lower part of Bergues and transferred Saint Winnoc’s relics there. The church was served by secular canons, members of a chapter rather than monks, and Baldwin granted its chapter property and privileges.
Between about 1020 and 1028, Baldwin IV of Flanders refounded the institution on the Groenberg. In 1022 he expelled the canons, whose way of life had become associated with excessive wealth and weak discipline, and replaced them with Benedictine monks from Saint-Omer under Abbot Roderic. Benedictines followed the Rule of Saint Benedict, which regulated communal prayer, discipline, and work. This change transformed the collegiate foundation into Saint Winnoc’s Abbey.
The new abbey remained closely connected with Saint-Bertin Abbey, the major Benedictine monastery at Saint-Omer. Until the abbacy of Rumoald, who held office from 1041 to 1070, the abbot of Saint-Bertin appointed the abbots of Saint Winnoc’s. The bishops of Thérouanne later made solemn visits to mark the affiliation, and the abbots of Saint Winnoc’s traditionally received their investiture at Saint-Bertin.
Growth, privileges, and pilgrimage
The counts of Flanders helped the abbey build economic and institutional power. In 1067 Baldwin V granted it churches, tithes, land, a mill, a fishery, judicial rights, and exemption from taxes. A tithe was a levy traditionally based on one-tenth of specified agricultural or ecclesiastical income. The abbey received the full tithe of Zuydcoote in 1121, followed by further privileges from Thierry of Alsace and Sibylla of Anjou. Philip of Alsace confirmed its privileges in 1183.
Through donations, purchases, and legal disputes, the abbey acquired extensive possessions in nearby villages. It could mint its own coins and hold an annual market at Wormhout. It also obtained reclaimed coastal land and exercised ecclesiastical jurisdiction over parishes including Bergues, Wormhout, Warhem, Quaedypre, Spycker, Armbouts-Cappel, Coudekerque, Ghyvelde, Esquelbecq, Ledringhem, and Grande-Synthe. A charter of 1183 granted it 100 measures of land at Ochtezeele, approximately 45 hectares.
Control of tithes brought the abbey into conflict with the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of the Dunes, a reform monastery within the Benedictine tradition. Its principal outlying establishment near Dunkirk stood at Synthe. Pope Alexander III settled the dispute in Saint Winnoc’s favour in February 1165, while exempting the Cistercians from tithes on animal fodder.
Saint Winnoc’s relics made the abbey an important pilgrimage destination. The remains of Saint Oswald, a seventh-century king of Northumbria, and Saint Itisberghe were deposited there in 1038. In 1058 Balgar, a monk of Saint Winnoc’s, brought the body of Saint Lewinna, an Anglo-Saxon martyr associated with Sussex, from England. The abbey also encouraged written accounts of miracles attributed to Saint Winnoc.
Medieval rebuilding and conflict
Major fires damaged or destroyed the abbey in 1083 and again in the early twelfth century. Rebuilding began in 1106, and the church was completed and consecrated during the 1130s. Abbot Alger directed a major renovation in 1138 and enlarged and embellished Saint Winnoc’s reliquary, the container used to preserve and display the saint’s relics.
The abbey continued to receive patronage and privileges during the fourteenth century. On 1 March 1347, Louis II of Flanders became engaged to Isabella of England at the abbey, although he married Margaret of Brabant later that year.
During the Western Schism, the late-medieval division in which rival claimants competed for recognition as pope, Saint Winnoc’s and Saint-Bertin supported the claims of the Avignonese antipope Clement VII. In 1383 Bergues was captured first by the English and then sacked by French forces. The abbey suffered heavy damage and its library was burned. The monks had moved the relics to Saint-Bertin for safety, and they were returned later. Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy and count of Flanders, subsequently supported the restoration of the town and abbey.
Sixteenth-century destruction and later rebuilding
French forces commanded by Marshal Paul de La Barthe de Thermes captured and burned Bergues on 4 July 1558. The abbey was so severely damaged that it reportedly never regained its former splendour. Protestant iconoclasts, reformers who opposed or destroyed religious images, pillaged it in 1566 and again in 1578.
The monks temporarily fled to Saint-Bertin with Saint Winnoc’s reliquary. Philip II of Spain installed a military post in the abbey, which remained there until 1590. Restoration and rebuilding followed the sixteenth-century destruction. After the church was rededicated in 1583, its vault collapsed in 1587. The monastery later underwent extensive rebuilding between 1753 and 1770.
Revolutionary suppression and surviving legacy
The French Revolution brought the abbey’s suppression. An inventory ordered in 1790 listed 27 religious, extensive paintings, gold and silver objects, and a library whose catalogue filled 480 pages. The monks had already left in 1791, taking part of the library with them. The abbey was closed and sold during the 1790s, then dismantled.
The gold-and-silver reliquary of Saint Winnoc was broken up and sent to the mint for its metal. Parts of the library survived in the municipal archives of Bergues and Dunkirk. Paintings and other collections were dispersed among museums and churches in the region, although many objects were lost. The surviving remains were listed as protected historic monuments in 1926, with that protection confirmed in 1946. The former abbey site later became part of the public Champ de Mars park, after the area had served from 1816 as a military drill ground for citizen soldiers of the National Guard.
Remains
The abbey occupied the right bank of the Colme Canal on the Groenberg, an isolated hill about 22 metres high that forms the upper part of Bergues. Its position lay along an important trade route near major commercial centres. The surviving remains include parts of the medieval church, two towers, the principal entrance, foundations recovered through later construction, and objects transferred to nearby churches and collections.
Church and medieval structures
Crossing tower
The early eleventh-century church was larger than the collegiate church it replaced. Its seven-bay nave extended westward from the White Tower to a square crossing tower, also known as the Block Tower or Blue Tower. The lower section of this crossing tower survives from the Romanesque period and contains three arches built from ferruginous sandstone. A Gothic bell stage was added in the fourteenth century. The slate roof that gave the tower its name as the Blue Tower was lost during the Second World War.
Nave and choir ambulatory
In 1635 the church still comprised the Romanesque tower and transept together with a basilical nave, meaning a central aisle higher than its side aisles. The nave had three aisles and seven bays. A large Gothic ambulatory, a passage running around the outside of the choir, was added from 1288 and completed in the early fourteenth century. Its construction removed the fourth Romanesque arch of the crossing.
By 1699, most of the nave had disappeared. A relief plan from that year shows the west tower and south wall surviving, with the passage between the tower and central nave closed by a window. Foundations of the former church were rediscovered in 1941 during construction of a German cemetery.
Entrances and surviving towers
Marble Gate
The eighteenth-century Marble Gate is the principal surviving entrance feature. It replaced the abbot’s original gatehouse and was restored in 1816. A pedimental display bearing the arms of France was added during that restoration and was pulled down by German forces in 1940. Since the early twentieth century, the gate has served as an entrance to the Champ de Mars public park.
White Tower
The White Tower has an octagonal form and a spire dating from 1031, covered by a slate roof. It collapsed in 1812 and was rebuilt during the nineteenth century, after which it was also called the Pointed Tower. Its survival was linked to its use as a coastal navigation mark for vessels entering Dunkirk.
Block Tower
The Block Tower is the surviving stump of the former church’s crossing tower. Since 1956 it has housed a concrete water tower, giving the medieval remnant a later civic function.
Objects and transferred collections
The reliquary of Saint Winnoc was enlarged and decorated under Abbot Alger. Made partly of gold and silver, it was later dismantled during the French Revolution. A principal bell from the church at Socx, cast in 1700 and decorated with a Dance of Death, came from the abbey’s carillon.
The church at Rexpoëde preserves the abbey’s organ case. The abbey also owned a portrait of Peter Paul Rubens painted by Anthony van Dyck. Other parts of its artistic and documentary heritage are held in the Museum of Fine Arts in Dunkirk and in regional archives and museums.
Nearby sites
