Saint-Germain-des-Prés (abbey)

The Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (French pronunciation: [sɛ̃ ʒɛʁmɛ̃ de pʁe]) is a Catholic parish church located in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter of Paris. It was originally the church of a Benedictine abbey founded in 558 by Childebert I, the son of Clovis, King of the Franks. The abbey was destroyed by the Vikings, rebuilt, and renamed in the 8th century for Saint Germain, a 6th century bishop. It was rebuilt with elements in the new Gothic style in the 11th century, and was given the earliest flying buttresses in the Ile de France in the 12th century. It is considered the oldest existing church in Paris.

Originally located outside the walls of medieval Paris, in the fields and meadows of the Left Bank, known as "les Prés", the church was the center of an important abbey complex, famous for its scholarship and its production of illuminated manuscripts, and was the burial place of Germain, and also of Childebert and other rulers of the Merovingian Dynasty. Most of the Abbey, except for the chapel and the Bishop's palace, was destroyed during the French Revolution. The chapel was subsequently restored and became the parish church.