OURSCAMP

. The Cistercian abbey of Ourscamp (Oise) is one of the largest monastic complexes remaining in northeastern France. Founded in 1129 by Simon de Vermandois, bishop of Noyon, the abbey prospered from its first years and became a well-known foundation. Four bishops of Noyon were buried in the abbey church. Ourscamp founded two daughter houses, Beaupre and Froidmont, and accepted a third, Mortemer, when it affiliated with the Cistercian order. The monastery now presents an imposing fagade with two monumental 18th-century wings, which conceal behind them the ruins of the medieval church.

The first small church at the site was dedicated in 1134. Beginning in 1154, this modest structure was replaced by a much larger church. After the Revolution, most of the second church was destroyed, but the entrance bay and the east wall of the transept survive. The remains indicate that the building had a two-story elevation with ribbed vaults. Drawings made of the abbey prior to its demolition indicate that the vaults were supported by flying buttresses; one such buttress survives encased in later masonry at the west end of the church on the north side. The architectural details indicate that, although the church was not consecrated until 1201, most of the structure was erected by the mid-1160s. The flying buttresses were integral to the design from the outset.

In ca. 1234, the eastern end of the church was replaced by a new choir with ambulatory and radiating chapels erected in a simplified version of the Rayonnant style. Although the new choir retained the two-story elevation of the nave, and matched the height of the earlier vaults of the 12th-century church to the west, its forms were much lighter and more delicate. Large windows in the clerestory and in the radiating chapels once flooded the new chevet with light. The Rayonnant choir was deliberately transformed into a picturesque ruin in the mid-19th century by the removal of the outer chapel walls and the webbing of the rib vaults.

Caroline A. Bruzelius

[See also: CISTERCIAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE; CISTERCIAN ORDER]

Bruzelius, Caroline. “Cistercian High Gothic: Longpont and the Architecture of the Cistercians in the Early Thirteenth Century.” Analecta cisterciensia 35 (1979):3-204 (esp. 110-28).

--. “The Twelfth-Century Church at Ourscamp.” Speculum 56 (1980):28-40.

Heliot, Pierre. “Le chreur de l’abbatiale d’Ourscamp et le groupe de Longpont dans l’architecture cistercienne.” Bulletin de la Societe Nationale des Antiquaires de France (1957):146-62. Lefevre-Pontalis, Eugene. “Ourscamp.” Congres archeologique (Beauvais) 72 (1905):165-68.