Abbaye Saint-Spire de Corbeil, Medieval abbey in Corbeil-Essonnes, France.

Abbaye Saint-Spire de Corbeil is a former secular collegiate abbey in Corbeil-Essonnes. Its surviving church, now the cathedral, has a tall pointed stone archway with multiple recessed moulded orders set in a weathered light-grey and beige wall; a rounded turret with a dark grey conical roof and metal finial stands at the upper left, and a plaque beside the arch reads "St SPIRE".

Count Haymon founded a college of canons in 950 to hold the relics of Saint Exupère, first bishop of Bayeux, moved from Palluau; he was buried there in 957. A charter of 2 November 1071 by Count Bouchard II allowed a cloister and raised the house to an abbey, though it stayed secular. Fires damaged the church in the 12th century; it was rededicated on 10 October 1437.

The name Saint-Spire refers to Saint Exupère, first bishop of Bayeux, whose relics Count Haymon brought here in 950. In 1793 revolutionaries threw those relics, with those of Saint Loup, into the Seine. The church became a parish, then a cathedral when the diocese of Corbeil was created on 1 January 1968.

The former collegiate church, now Corbeil-Essonnes cathedral since the diocese was created on 1 January 1968, stands in the town centre. The pointed archway in the photograph is the surviving portal, marked by a small "St SPIRE" plaque; the street sign above the STOP sign reads "SAUF RIVERAINS ET SERVICE PUBLIC", so the lane is closed to through traffic. Look up at the rounded turret with its conical roof on the left of the wall.

In a charter of 2 November 1071, Count Bouchard II of Corbeil authorised a cloister around the collegiate church and granted the canons new rights, and the house was raised to the rank of abbey. This was unusual, since colleges of secular canons were normally led by a simple rector, dean or provost. The change of title did not alter its nature: it remained a body of secular clerics, never a regular house, and its abbot was himself a secular cleric.