page_title: Nivelles Abbey
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Nivelles Abbey / History
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Nivelles (Belgique), avant corps (westbau) et porte méridionale de la collégiale Sainte-Gertrude (XI/XIIIe siècle). English: Nivelles (Belgium), fore-part and southern door of the Saint Gertrude Collegiate church (XI/XIIIth century). Walon: Nivèle (Bèljike), avant-cwârps èt pwate au midi dol coléjiale Sinte-Djèrtrûde (XI/XIIIin.me sièkes).
context_page_description: The Abbey of Nivelles, is a former Imperial Abbey of the Holy Roman Empire founded about 650. It is located in the town of Nivelles in Province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium.
context_section_description: Nivelles Abbey was founded around 648-649 by the widow of Pepin of Landen, Itta of Metz, along with her daughter, Gertrude of Nivelles, with the support of the bishop, Saint Amand. The abbey began as a community of nuns; they were joined later by Irish monks from the Abbey of Mont Saint-Quentin, sent by Abbot Foillan to give support to the nuns. A group of the monks settled at Nivelles and it soon became a double monastery, led either by an abbot and abbess, later only by an abbess. At that point, the abbey came under the influence of Irish monasticism, with its heavy emphasis on a severe asceticism.
  In the 9th century there began a process of secularization of the community which possibly ended in the 12th century. The abbey had close ties to the royal family, and played an important role in the social life of the palace. The abbey was part of the dower of Emperor Otto II to the Byzantine princess Theophanu. From the 12th century, the character of the community began to change to a more prestigious one, so that the members became canonesses regular who came from among the nobility, as attested in a document dated 1462. For most of the Middle Ages the Abbey remained an Imperial Abbey, a semi-sovereign institution directly under the king.
  The abbey was suppressed after the invasion of the Duchy of Brabant in 1794 by the armies of the First French Republic.
caption: Facade and southern door of the Collegiate Church of Saint Gertrude (11th century).
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