ARGENTEUIL

. A suburb of Paris on the Seine, Argenteuil (Val d’Oise) was during the Middle Ages the site of a Benedictine priory of women. Its early history is sketchy, though it was in existence by the late 7th century; it is mentioned only rarely in the succeeding centuries. At the beginning of the 12th century, Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis claimed that from its foundation the priory had belonged to his abbey. He produced a charter of the emperors Louis I and Lothair I to support his claim, and in 1129 Argenteuil was “returned” to Saint-Denis and the nuns expelled. There is, however, evidence that Suger fabricated the story and the document that supported his claim. It was to this priory that Abelard led Heloise after their marriage; it was where she took the veil; and she was the superior when the nuns were expelled.

From the mid-12th-century, the church at Argenteuil claimed to possess the relic of the Holy Tunic, the seamless robe that Christ had at the Crucifixion and that the monks claimed had been given to the priory by a daughter of Charlemagne. Though in the Middle Ages the priory possessed extensive domains, from the time of the Hundred Years’ War it suffered losses. In 1686, Argenteuil was joined to the royal foundation at Saint-Cyr. At the Revolution, the priory was suppressed and destroyed, and today only a few fragments of sculpture remain.

Thomas G. Waldman

[See also: HELOISE; SAINT-DENIS; SUGER]

Waldman, Thomas. “Abbot Suger and the Nuns of Argenteuil.” Traditio 41(1985):239-72.