Les très puissantes dames de Saint-Pierre. Premiers Jalons pour une histoire de l'Abbaye Saint-Pierre de Lyon (VIe-XVIe s.)

The history of Saint-Pierre abbey is consubstantial with the history of the city of Lyon. This paper focuses first on the question of the foundation of the community, by highlighting the fact that it was founded in an aera of the antique city of Lugdunum in which martyrial churches have been built. Saint-Pierre abbey becomes then during the Carolingian period one of the richest communities of Lyon, and the nuns, who were first called puellae, become dominae. Their powerful position however, was strongly challenged and then diminished from the XIVth c. onwards.