Popular tradition has it that the first city to ban the Sainte-Marie-aux-Chênes is a Gallo-Roman village named "Harris villa" grouped around a large farm with the name of the owner of the modest homes of the workers attached to the service of " villa ". This would cause the appointment of the present village, left the road to Mons (on the coast, after the mine Ida, in the corner of hedges, before the "gully" above the wood Magieux ) at this place, put the cart once again updated the debris of Roman tiles.
In those early times, the bottom of the valley which runs at the foot of the mine and down to Ida Homécourt by "career" at a place called "Le Breuil" a spring whose waters and cold ferruginous had the reputation of be particularly febrifuge to heal the lung and relieve by washing, diseases of eyes. For the latter reason, the fountain of miraculous waters enjoyed great reputation among the Celtic populations in the area. Surrounded by oak trees (these trees revered at the time of the Celts by our ancestors the Gauls), this source flowed, they say, in the shadow of one of the oldest and most majestic "king of the forest." Today, largely dried up by the mines, it has only very low speed, a very thin stream of water.
It is understandable that such a name could have given rise to the pious tradition of the Christian origins of this small city. The fact is that the name is attested from the 12th century and is variously spelled: Sancta Maria ad Querqus (hence the name given to scholarly Quercussiens inhabitants of Sainte-Marie), Achesne Sancta Maria, St. Mary Chesne (1593), Marie-aux-Chenes in 1793 when the French Revolution broke out against the church (we can not fail to make the connection with the name of Marieneichen given during the last German occupation). With the Concordat of 1801, the village officially found the name of Sainte-Marie-aux-Chênes.
