Bernard of Clairvaux founded the abbey at Buzay in 1135, at the request of Ermengarde of Anjou, widow of Alan IV, Duke of Brittany, and mother of Conan III, Duke of Brittany.[1] The next year, in 1136, the first community of a dozen monks settled on the site of the new abbey with Nivard, a younger brother of Bernard de Clairvaux, as their prior.[2][3] Bernard himself came for the dedication of the new foundation, accompanied by Geoffroy de Lèves, Bishop of Chartres, as they were travelling together on a visit to Parthenay to meet William X, Duke of Aquitaine.[4] Around 1143, Bernard of Clairvaux came from Champagne to visit Buzay, but found its abbey in a state of great poverty and neglect. Conan III had not honoured his promises of support, and Bernard asked the monks to return to Clairvaux, but first he met Conan III, who admitted his fault and gave the monks everything he had denied them. They then decided to stay.[3]
The abbey became rich, thanks to the salt trade,[5] commercial traffic on the river Loire, and many gifts of land and other property. In 1177, Robert II, bishop of Nantes, approved the addition of a convent for nuns. In 1180, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Nantes, a son of Henry II of England, Duke of Normandy, and of Eleanor of Aquitaine, assigned to the abbey in perpetuity twenty livres to be paid by the mills of the surrounding parish.[2][3]
The abbey’s vaulted cellars survive
Chartres Cathedral
With effect from 1474, commendatory abbots were appointed by the duke or king, replacing the regular abbots elected locally.[1]
During the War in the Vendée (March – December 1793), following the French Revolution, Buzay Abbey was destroyed by fire. What now remains of the buildings is a tower which had been rebuilt in the 18th century, and some vaulted cellars. Other survivals are the bells, which were transferred to Chartres cathedral, an Italian marble altar, which was moved to the church of Saint-Louis in Paimbœuf, a pulpit, now in the church of St Peter in Bouguenais, and some other objects, including the oldest crucifix in the Pays de Retz, dating from the fourteenth century, in the chapel of St Anne of Tharon at Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef.[3]
Daughter houses
Villeneuve Abbey, in an engraving of 1695
From Buzay, three new Cistercian abbeys were instituted as daughter houses.[3]
On 1 July 1172, Buzay sent a few monks to the small Île du Pilier, north of Noirmoutier. However, the small windswept island posed so many problems for the new community that in 1205 the monks fell back on the island of Noirmoutier and founded the abbey of Our Lady the White.[2]
On 25 March 1200, at the request of Constance, Duchess of Brittany, monks were sent for the founding of her new Villeneuve Abbey,[6] on land belonging to Buzay, located on the Ognon, a river flowing into the lake of Grand-Lieu, near the Châtellenie of Touffou and the village of Bignon. The monks would help to drain the surrounding marshes, with advice from engineers of the Poitevin marshes, and would also help to dig a canal between Messan and the Loire.[2]
Charles de Lorraine, abbot 1552–1564Henri de Gondi, abbot 1598–1622François Lefebvre de Caumartin, abbot 1675–1733Louis de Bourbon-Condé, abbot 1733–1737
1 2 3 4 5 Arlette Lebigre, “Les débuts de l’abbaye cistercienne de Buzay en pays de Rais, 1144-1250”, in Revue historique de droit français et étranger, Issue 3, July–September 1967, pp. 451-482 JSTOR43848255 (in French)
↑ Ulysse Chevalier, Notice chronologico-historique sur les archevêques de Vienne (1879), p. 18: “Jean VII Georges Le Franc de Pompignan, évêque du Puy, lui succéda... il se démit alors de son siége et reçut l'abbaye de Buzay; il mourut le 29 décembre 1790”
Bernard of Clairvaux, O. Cist., venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templars, and a major leader in the reformation of the Benedictine Order through the nascent Cistercian Order.
Clairvaux Abbey was a Cistercian monastery in Ville-sous-la-Ferté, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) from Bar-sur-Aube. The original building, founded in 1115 by St. Bernard, is now in ruins; the present structure dates from 1708. Clairvaux Abbey was a good example of the general layout of a Cistercian monastery. The abbey has been listed since 1926 as a historical monument by the French Ministry of Culture.
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Constance was Duchess of Brittany from 1166 to her death in 1201 and Countess of Richmond from 1171 to 1201. Constance was the daughter of Duke Conan IV by his wife, Margaret of Huntingdon, a sister of the Scottish kings Malcolm IV and William I.
Guy of Thouars was the third husband of Constance, Duchess of Brittany, whom he married in Angers, County of Anjou between August and October 1199 after her son Arthur of Brittany entered Angers to be recognized as count of the three countships of Anjou, Maine and Touraine. He was an Occitan noble, a member of the House of Thouars. He is counted as a duke of Brittany, jure uxoris, from 1199 to 1201.
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Ermengarde of Anjou, also known as Ermengarde of Brittany, was a member of the comital House of Anjou and by her two marriages was successively Duchess of Aquitaine and Brittany. She was also a patron of Fontevraud Abbey. Ermengarde was the regent of Brittany during the absence of her spouse, Duke Alan IV of Brittany, from 1096 until 1101.
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Igny Abbey or Val d'Igny Abbey is a Cistercian abbey located in Arcis-le-Ponsart, Marne, France. It was founded in 1128 for Cistercian monks, dissolved in 1791 during the French Revolution, re-established in 1876 for Trappist monks, destroyed in 1918, reopened in 1929 for Trappist nuns and modernised in 2008–12 to accommodate three or four pre-existing communities.
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