The Abbey of St. Peter in Oudenburg (french: abbaye Saint-Pierre d'Audembourg) was an abbey established in 1070 by Arnold of Soissons in Oudenburg, West Flanders, which is now located in present-day Belgium.

History

Arnold founded the abbey after he was removed from his position as

Bishop of Soissons The Roman Catholic Diocese of Soissons, Laon, and Saint-Quentin (Latin: ''Dioecesis Suessionensis, Laudunensis et Sanquintinensis''; French: ''Diocèse de Soissons, Laon et Saint-Quentin'') is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Ch ...

and at the abbey Arnold began to brew beer to remove pathogens from the water and encouraged the locals to drink it. In 1173 this abbey started to reclaim salt marshes (flooded land). This resulted in the creation of the

Bamburg Bamberg (, , ; East Franconian: ''Bambärch'') is a town in Upper Franconia, Germany, on the river Regnitz close to its confluence with the river Main. The town dates back to the 9th century, when its name was derived from the nearby ' castl ...

polder A polder () is a low-lying tract of land that forms an artificial hydrological entity, enclosed by embankments known as dikes. The three types of polder are: # Land reclaimed from a body of water, such as a lake or the seabed # Flood plains s ...

. In medieval times the pigeons in the town square belonged to the Abbey farm. The abbey was demolished at the time of the French Revolution. On the 16 February 1797 the abbey and all properties were sold and the buildings were largely demolished. The last monk was Veremundus Norbertus Da (1770–1852) and the property became a farm.

Site today

One tower from the abbey was not destroyed during the Revolution and during Nazi occupation, this tower served as a lookout. In 1934

Steenbrugge Abbey Assebroek is a suburb in the municipality and city of Bruges, Belgium. In 2004, Assebroek had 19,525 inhabitants. Since 1999, this number has hardly changed. Assebroek is home to 16.7% of Bruges’ population. History Through artifacts retrieved ...

got the naming rights from St. Peter's Abbey, and in 1989 the farm became a hotel. The town Roman Archeological Museum lies nearby the former abbey and displays some relics of the abbey in its collection.

Known abbots

* Arnold of Soissons. Founder and patron saint of brewers. * Hariulf ( fl. 1130s)Mary Stroll ''The Jewish Pope: Ideology and Politics in the Papal Schism of 1130'' (BRILL, 1987
page 124
*

Raphael de Mercatellis Raphael de Mercatellis, also known as Raphael of Burgundy (1473–3 August 1508), was a church official, imperial counsellor and bibliophile. He was the illegitimate son of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy and a woman of Venetian origins, the wif ...

(1463–1478), noted bibliophile. *

Charles Geleyns Charles Geleyns (c. 1610 – 22 August 1677 in Bruges), also named Carolus Geleyns in Latin or Karel Geleyns in Dutch, was a Flemish Roman Catholic priest, Benedictine monk and abbot of the Saint Peter's Abbey of Oudenburg in the Southern Nethe ...

(c. 1610 – Bruges, 22 August 1677).

References

{{coord, 51.18534, 3.007, region:BE_type:landmark, display=title Ruined Christian monasteries in Belgium Christian monasteries in West Flanders 1070 establishments in Europe 1797 disestablishments in Europe