Eventually there will be links to other pages devoted to the history of the destroyed collegial church of Saint John ("Saint-Jean-au-Val"), below the Northwest walls of Chartres.

(The following summary history is taken from Yves Delaporte's learned article  "Chartres" in  the Dictionnaire d'histoire et géographie écclésiastique, XII (1953), col. 560)

The church of this abbey, built around 1020 below the Northern walls of the city, was originally given over to a college of canons by St. Fulbert.   In 1099 it was reformed by St. Ivo, who installed regular canons there.   The abbey flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries, but, being outside the walls, was pillaged by the Huguenots during the siege of 1568.

The damage was so extensive that it was considered impractical to rebuild on the site, and the canons moved into the city, occupying their priory of St. Stephen--which they had possessed since their foundation--Southeast of the Cathedral.

Commendatory abbots were inposed in 1556.   Around 1640 the Genovefains--who had arrived in 1628--rebuilt the priory.   In 1790 there were only 12 religious living there. ***********************

This important abbey has disappeared without a physical trace, only a small place near the West entrance to a city park marking the spot. There were apparently some "excavations" sometime in the course of the 19th century, which resulted in a curious "plan" which was published in the Memoires of the local society, but my memory of this "plan" is that it is singularly unhelpful and, at least as far as the abbey church is concerned, totally fictitious.

Though we only have one charter from the abbey from the period before the end of the 11th century, numerous 12th and 13th century charters and later documents have survived, mostly forming the fonds de St-Jean of the H. series in the Archives departementales. Most were collected and published by René Merlet at the turn of the century as the Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Saint-Jean-en-Vallée de Chartres.