OURSCAMP
. The Cistercian abbey of Ourscamp (Oise) is one of the largest monastic complexes
remaining in northeastern France. Founded in 1129 by Simon de Vermandois, bishop of
Noyon, the abbey prospered from its first years and became a well-known foundation.
Four bishops of Noyon were buried in the abbey church. Ourscamp founded two daughter
houses, Beaupré and Froidmont, and accepted a third, Mortemer, when it affiliated with
the Cistercian order. The monastery now presents an imposing façade with two
monumental 18th-century wings, which conceal behind them the ruins of the medieval
church.
The first small church at the site was dedicated in 1134. Beginning in 1154, this
modest structure was replaced by a much larger church. After the Revolution, most of the
second church was destroyed, but the entrance bay and the east wall of the transept
survive. The remains indicate that the building had a two-story elevation with ribbed
vaults. Drawings made of the abbey prior to its demolition indicate that the vaults were
supported by flying buttresses; one such buttress survives encased in later masonry at the
west end of the church on the north side. The architectural details indicate that, although
the church was not consecrated until 1201, most of the structure was erected by the mid-
1160s. The flying buttresses were integral to the design from the outset.
In ca. 1234, the eastern end of the church was replaced by a new choir with
ambulatory and radiating chapels erected in a simplified version of the Rayonnant style.
Although the new choir retained the two-story elevation of the nave, and matched the
height of the earlier vaults of the 12th-century church to the west, its forms were much
lighter and more delicate. Large windows in the clerestory and in the radiating chapels
once flooded the new chevet with light. The Rayonnant choir was deliberately
transformed into a picturesque ruin in the mid-19th century by the removal of the outer
chapel walls and the webbing of the rib vaults.
Caroline A.Bruzelius
[See also: CISTERCIAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE; CISTERCIAN ORDER]
Bruzelius, Caroline. “Cistercian High Gothic: Longpont and the Architecture of the Cistercians in
the Early Thirteenth Century.” Analecta cisterciensia 35 (1979):3–204 (esp. 110–28).
——. “The Twelfth-Century Church at Ourscamp.” Speculum 56 (1980):28–40.
Héliot, Pierre. “Le chœur de l’abbatiale d’Ourscamp et le groupe de Longpont dans l’architecture
cistercienne.” Bulletin de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France (1957):146–62.
Lefèvre-Pontalis, Eugène. “Ourscamp.” Congrès archéologique (Beauvais) 72 (1905):165–68.
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