Notre-Dame de Soissons

[1] The convent was founded by Ebroin, the mayor of the palace under the Merovingian kings, who appointed Aetheria, a nun from Jouarre, as its first abbess.

Jouarre had been founded by Ado, a disciple of the Irish missionary Columban, and Notre-Dame therefore stood in the Columbanian tradition of monasticism.

According to the record of monasteries made around that time, the Monasterium sanctae Mariae Suessionis owed the state dona et militia, a monetary gift and military contribution (in the case of a nunnery, paid soldiers).

[3] In 858, an inventory (descriptio) of the monastery's possessions was made before the king's leading men (optimates) and signed by fifteen bishops and abbots.

[4] The writer and theologian Paschasius Radbertus was raised at Notre-Dame de Soissons—prior to 803/4, when Charlemagne made illegal the education of boys at nunneries.