The Abbey of Arrouaise [ɑʁ.wɛz] in northern France was the centre of a form of the canonical life known as the Arrouaisian Order, which was popular among the founders of canonries during the decade of the 1130s.
That had developed into a community which adopted the task of providing a service to travellers through the then, great Forest of Arrouaise in Artois.
The Order of Arrouaise was differentiated from others by being basically that of St. Augustine with the more restrained approach of the Cistercians as a guide to its more austere regimen than that of other Canons Regular.
However, within the appropriate area and in the higher land between the sources of rivers such as the Somme, Sambre and Escaut, there is a hamlet called l’Arrouaise.
It lies at the end of a turning off a back road, the D272 (département of Aisne), 11.5 km (7.1 mi) south-east of the place known to British military historians as Le Cateau.
More plausibly there was a small abbey, founded in the 11th century, "in the middle of the Forest of Arrouaise", at Aubencheul-aux-Bois near the N44 and about halfway between Cambrai and St. Quentin.