SAINT-RIQUIER. - Ancient Benedictine abbey, near Abbeville in the diocese of Amiens (France), founded ca. 624-34 by St. Richarius, son of a count of Ponthieu (feast on 26 April, cf. Martyr. Romanum, p. 157). It was enlarged by Abbot Angilbert of Centula ca. 793.
Angilbert was in Rome in the years 792, 794, 796, 800; from 790 abbot of Centula, he renewed the monastery, enriched the monastic library with codices and the churches with relics. The Centula sylloge, notable for the text of certain inscriptions, closes with the epitaph of St. Chaidoc (G. B. De Rossi, Inscr. chr., II, 1, Rome 1888, pp. 72-77). Angilbert built 3 churches; one over the tomb of St. Richarius, after the earlier church of Abbot Ocioaldus had been demolished, was dedicated to the Savior and to all the saints; another to the B. Virgin and the Apostles, the third to St. Benedict and the other holy abbots. The abbey then flourished and reached the number of 400 monks; but in 845 it was sacked by the Normans; ca. 959 it was reformed by St. Gerard of Brogne; it passed into commendam in 1538, then to the Maurist Congregation in 1659. The abbey was almost destroyed by lightning in 1710; today it is partly occupied by the small Seminary of the diocese of Amiens; the abbey church of the Savior was rebuilt in the 15th-16th centuries; restored in 1827-28, it now serves as a parish church. On the facade are 12 large statues of the Apostles; the square tower rises to 50 m. The interior, 104 × 25 m and 25 m high, is in the form of a Latin cross divided into three naves by columns brought from Italy. It has a single apse and transept. In the choir are 68 carved stalls and some statues from the ancient building. In the Treasury are precious reliquaries. Of the rich Library the survivors are the Carolingian purple Evangeliary in 198 leaves with five initials and four full-page miniatures, preserved in the Library of Abbeville; furthermore ms. lat. 13359 of the National Library of Paris. The chronicle of the monk Hariulf, written ca. 1688, has also been destroyed; in it he had inserted the catalogue of the abbey Library (F. Lot, Hariulf, Chronique de l'abbaye de St-Riquier, Paris 1894). The Carmina Centulensia of Mico, Fredegard and Odulf constitute the poetic history of the abbey from 825 to 853 and from 861 to 871. The monastery's charters were dispersed in several places: in the departmental and national archives, in the Libraries of Amiens and of Paris (National and Arsenal).