Founded for the female followers of Fulk of Neuilly (d. 1202), a preacher best remembered for exciting enthusiasm for what became the Fourth Crusade at the behest of Pope Innocent III.
The first abbess of Maubuisson, begun in 1236 by Queen Blanche of Castille, was Guillemette from Saint-Antoine-des-Champs
Some noble families of the region made early bequests, and Parisian properties "in censiva domini regis" were confirmed by the king. But the primary patrons after the first years were middle-class citizens of Paris and clerics of the university community.
Urban community whose members were predominantly of Paris's elite but usuall non-aristocratic business class.
One of the wealthiest of all Cistercian nunneries in Europe, with individual private incomes in addition to communal property. Founded outside the 12th-century city walls, Saint-Antoine was by the late Middle Ages a major property owner in a thriving commercial district.
Benefactors established at least 5 chapels in the 13th century. Assets included many urban properties, land, houses, and rents, as well as suburban and rural lands.
Two medieval cartularies in the Archives Nationales, Paris: s*4386 and LL1595.
A few structural elements of the medieval and early modern building reamin remain in what has been since 1795 the Hopital Saint-Antoine, 184 rue Faubourg Saint-Antoine, Paris 12e.
See Early Documents
Jacques de Vitry, Historia Occidentalis, ed. J. F. Hinnebusch (Fribourg, 1972), pp. 100-273-274, 290
Gallia christiana, vol. 7, pp. 899-906
Constance Berman, "Dowries, Private Income, and Anniversary Masses: The Nuns of Saint-Antoine-des-Champs (Paris)," Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History 20 (1993): 3-12.
Milton R. Gutsch, "A Twelfth-Century Preacher: Fulk of Neuilly." In The Crusades and Other Historical Essays, ed. L. J. Paetow (New York, 1928), 183-206.
