Saint-Quentin, Collégiale Saint-Quentin

The city of St-Quentin has been associated with the Roman town of Augusta Viromanduorum, although the exact location and nature of the Roman settlement remain unclear. The modern city and church derive their name from an Early Christian missionary, Quentin, martyred in the late third century according to legend. His body was said to have been discovered several decades later by a Roman widow, Eusebia, in the marshes of the Somme River at the edge of modern Saint-Quentin. Eusebia buried the martyr's remains at the top of the hill and built a small shrine. Recent excavations around the church's crypt have in fact uncovered the remains of a building of this date. Gregory of Tours listed the chapel as a pilgrimage site, and the precise location of the tomb was rediscovered by Saint Eloi, Bishop of Noyon, in the 7th century "under the pavement of the basilica". Eloi is said to have enlarged the church, and the remains of a 7th-century floor in the area near the crypt have also recently been verified. St-Quentin has also laid claim to preceding Noyon as the region's episcopal see, and texts suggest that in the early Middle Ages it was a double church foundation -- one church centered around Quentin's pilgrimage, and the other dedicated to the Virgin. St-Quentin flourished as a monastery and pilgrimage site under the Carolingians, and fragments of walls from this period have also been identified by archaeologists. The monastery was probably damaged during the invasions of the late 9th century, and flourished again in the later 10th century with the Counts of Vermandois as patrons. Historical annals describe a rebuilding in the mid-10th century. It was probably at this time that the former monastery was transformed into a foundation of secular canons, a process repeated at several other sites in the region, including St-Fursy of Péronne. The church again suffered some damage during the local ducal wars in , but nothing is known of the extent of the damage or its repair. 17th- and 18th-century antiquarians credited Count Raoul of Vermandois (ca. 1100-1152) with rebuilding the church at that time, but the document on which this is based is an obituary gift, more reasonably dated to the time of the Count's death some 50 years later. Documents that may be associated with the construction of the Gothic church include the obituary of treasurer Matthew Le Sot, who died by 1197, and is credited with "laying the first stone", and series of chapel foundations, wills, and obits that can be dated to about 1195-1205. The relics of Quentin and two other patron saints, Victoric of Amiens and Cassian of Auxerre, were translated from the old crypt (to the east of the main crossing) to a temporary location in the nave in 1228. They were translated into the new choir in the presence of Louis IX in 1257.