Charlieu Abbey or St. Fortunatus' Abbey, Charlieu (French : Abbaye de Charlieu) was a Benedictine abbey located at Charlieu, Loire, Burgundy, France. It was later a Cluniac priory.
Charlieu Abbey or St. Fortunatus' Abbey, Charlieu (French : Abbaye de Charlieu) was a Benedictine abbey located at Charlieu, Loire, Burgundy, France. It was later a Cluniac priory.
The monastery, dedicated to Saint Fortunatus, was founded in 872, in this region of southern Burgundy known as the Forez. [1] Its patrons were Ratbertus, bishop of Valence, and his brother Edward, in a place they called Carus Locus ("dear place"), [2] and dedicated to Saint Stephen and Saint Fortunatus, patron of Valence, with his co-martyrs Felix and Achilles. [3] The abbey was placed under the direct control of the Holy See.
The tradition that the abbey church and other structures at the site were erected by Gausmar, the first abbot, and his monks with their own hands is belied by the fine and professional character of the masonry uncovered when remains of the foundations of the Carolingian abbey were uncovered at the site in 1927. [4] Its roof was wooden, for no foundations for interior supporting piers were found. Pencil towers no more than two meters in diameter encircled the corners of its façade and its apsidal east end, which had a semi-subterranean ambulatory; semi-circular buttresses strengthened the walls at intervals. [5]
An early benefactor was Boso, Duke of Burgundy, who placed a priory in Charlieu's gift when he was crowned King of Provence (879); the abbey long claimed that Boso was buried at Charlieu. By 926 the abbey was important enough to be the seat of a synod, at which it was decided that certain alienated church properties were to be returned to the church by their lay proprietors.
The Benedictine community at Charlieu was annexed by the Cluniac movement in 932, [6] one of Cluny's earliest acquisitions and always among the first mentioned in any list of Cluniac houses. In the eleventh century the abbot was reduced to a prior. The church was rebuilt on a somewhat expanded plan under the rule of Odilo, abbot of Cluny, in the first half of the eleventh century, in a campaign that lasted fifty years, continuing under Odilo's successor Hugh: the abbey church was consecrated in 1094. A narthex was added in the twelfth century.
The community of Charlieu refused the Cluniac reforms of the seventeenth century, and on 19 March 1787, letters patent suppressed the abbey. On 9 September 1792 a Revolutionary mob broke into the abbey's muniments room and made a bonfire of all its records. In 1795 the abbey church was sold for the value of its building materials, in two lots, of which one, comprising the narthex and westernmost bay, still stand today as a ruin; the eastern end was razed.
Coordinates: 46°9′28″N4°10′7″E / 46.15778°N 4.16861°E
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An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns.
The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict, are a monastic religious order of the Catholic Church following the Rule of Saint Benedict. They are also sometimes called the Black Monks, in reference to the colour of their religious habits. They were founded by Benedict of Nursia, a 6th-century monk who laid the foundations of Benedictine monasticism through the formulation of his Rule of Saint Benedict.
A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or nuns, or monasteries of monks or nuns. Houses of canons regular and canonesses regular also use this term, the alternative being "canonry".
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Gorze Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Gorze in the present arrondissement of Metz, near Metz in Lorraine. It was prominent as the source of a monastic reform movement in the 930s.
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Saint Berno of Cluny or Berno of Baume was the first abbot of Cluny from its foundation in 909 until he died in 927. He began the tradition of the Cluniac reforms which his successors spread across Europe.
In the Middle Ages, from the 11th century, the Cluniac order established a number of religious houses in the kingdoms of England and Scotland.
The Abbey of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre is a former Benedictine monastery in central France, dedicated to its founder Saint Germain of Auxerre, the bishop of Auxerre, who died in 448. It was founded on the site of an oratory built by Germanus in honor of Saint Maurice.
The Abbey of Montier-en-Der in Haute-Marne, France, was formerly a Benedictine, later Cluniac, abbey, dissolved during the French Revolution, the grounds and premises of which, since 1806, have been used as the French National Stud Farm.
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Souvigny Priory, in the commune of Souvigny, Allier, France, in the centre of the old province of the Bourbonnais, was formerly a Cluniac priory, of which the church remains in operation.
Hugh of Anzy le Duc OSB was a French Benedictine monk, who had a significant influence on monastic reform in the 9th and 10th centuries. He is also known by the name of Hugh of Autun. His birthdate is unknown. He was a native of Poitiers in France. He died in the year 930. He was a friend of Berno of Cluny, the first abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Cluny. His feastday is on April 20.
