abbatiale de St Jean aux Bois, Saint-Jean-aux-Bois

The abbey of Saint-Jean-aux-Bois is an ancient abbey located in the current French department of Oise, in the forest of Compiègne, on the territory of the commune of Saint-Jean-aux-Bois. It was founded in 1152 by Queen Adelaide of Savoy to establish a community of Benedictine nuns living under the rule of Cluny. The widow of the French king Louis VI bought for this purpose the lands and the old royal house of Cuise that her husband and Philip I had given to the priory of Béthisy-Saint-Pierre. The construction of the convent probably began shortly after the foundation, but the church was not built until the 1220s.

In 1634, the isolation of the site in the middle of the forest motivated the nuns to exchange their monastery with the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine for the Abbey of Royallieu in Compiègne. The canons became victims of a looting by a detachment of troops of the marshal of Turenne in 1652, and never managed to recover from the damage suffered. The priory was finally suppressed on June 25, 1761, due to economic difficulties and too few members. The abbey church was transformed into a parish church at that time. The other buildings were sold to private individuals, and of the conventual buildings themselves, only the chapter house remained. Also remaining are the fortified gate, part of the enclosure, the porch of the abbey farm and some other remains. Almost nothing is known of the life of the abbey, whose archives were destroyed during the Revolution.

The memory of the two religious communities that lived there is kept alive by the abbey church, which is a monument of primitive Gothic style of great interest, austere and elegant at the same time, and preserved in perfect condition. It was classified as a historical monument quite early on by the list of 1862. The chapter house, which can be visited, and the fortified door were also listed in 1889.