Fontfroide Abbey

Last updated

Fontfroide Abbey: cloister Fontfroide 034.jpg
Fontfroide Abbey: cloister
Fontfroide Abbey: chapter house FontFroide.jpg
Fontfroide Abbey: chapter house
The abbey church Fontfroide eglise sud-ouest.jpg
The abbey church

Fontfroide Abbey (French : Abbaye Sainte-Marie de Fontfroide; Latin : Fons frigidus) is a former Cistercian monastery in France, situated 15 kilometers south-west of Narbonne near to the Spanish border.

Contents

It was founded in 1093 by Aimery I, Viscount of Narbonne, but remained poor and obscure, and needed to be re-founded by Ermengarde, Viscountess of Narbonne. [1] In 1144 it affiliated itself to the Cistercian reform movement. [1] Shortly afterwards the Count of Barcelona gave it the land in Spain that was to form the great Catalan monastery of Poblet, of which Fontfroide counts as the mother house, and in 1157 the Viscountess Ermengard of Narbonne granted it a great quantity of land locally, thus securing its wealth and status. The abbey fought together with Pope Innocent III against the heretical doctrine of the Cathars who lived in the region. The Black Death, which reached Narbonne in 1348, decimated almost the entire community. [2] [3]

It was dissolved in 1791 in the course of the French Revolution.

It was re-founded in 1858 by monks from Sénanque Abbey. In 1901, because of the French legal changes, the community was driven out of France and went into exile in Spain: the abbey was abandoned. [4] The premises, which are of very great architectural interest, passed into private hands in 1908, when the artists Gustave and Madeleine Fayet d'Andoque bought it to protect the fabric of the buildings from an American collector of sculpture. They restored it over a number of years and used it as a centre for artistic projects. [5]

It still remains in private hands. Today wine is produced here of the AOC Corbières quality under the French appellations system. It also has a small working farm, bookstore and restaurant and takes paying guests.

The Night, c. 1910-1911, part of a series of decorative panels by Odilon Redon, commissioned by Gustave Faret and located in the Fontfroide Abbey library La Nuit (The Night) - 1910-1911 - Odilon Redon.jpg
The Night, c. 1910-1911, part of a series of decorative panels by Odilon Redon, commissioned by Gustave Faret and located in the Fontfroide Abbey library

Notes

  1. 1 2 Berman 2000, p. 131.
  2. "Une abbaye cistercienne". Abbaye de fontfroide (in French). Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  3. Larguier, Gilbert (8 April 2014). Le drap et le grain en Languedoc : Narbonne et Narbonnais 1300-1789. Études. Perpignan: Presses universitaires de Perpignan. ISBN   978-2-35412-198-3.
  4. "Petites histoires d'archives #20 Le couvent assiégé (Carcassonne, 1903)". archivesdepartementales.aude.fr (in French). Les Archives départementales de l’Aude. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  5. Mario d'Angelo (ed) La musique à la Belle Époque. Autour du foyer artistique de Gustave Fayet. Paris, Fontfroide, Béziers. Paris: Éditions de Manuscrit, 2013.
  6. Geipel, Gary (25 January 2013). "A Late Blooming". The Wall Street Journal

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fontevraud Abbey</span> Monastery in Fontevraud-lAbbaye, France

The Royal Abbey of Our Lady of Fontevraud or Fontevrault was a monastery in the village of Fontevraud-l'Abbaye, near Chinon, in the former French Duchy of Anjou. It was founded in 1101 by the itinerant preacher Robert of Arbrissel. The foundation flourished and became the centre of a new monastic Order, the Order of Fontevraud. This order was composed of double monasteries, in which the community consisted of both men and women — in separate quarters of the abbey — all of whom were subject to the authority of the Abbess of Fontevraud. The Abbey of Fontevraud itself consisted of four separate communities, all managed by the same abbess.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aiguebelle Abbey</span>

Aiguebelle Abbey is a Trappist monastery situated in the communes of Montjoyer and Réauville in the département of Drôme, on the borders of the Dauphiné and of Provence, France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gustave Fayet</span> French painter (1865–1925)

Gustave Fayet was a French painter. His work is close in style to that of Paul Gauguin or Odilon Redon. He learnt to draw and paint with his father, Gabriel Fayet, and his uncle Léon Fayet, who both admired pre-impressionnist painters such as Adolphe Monticelli or Camille Corot. Gustave Fayet's style is very personal, far from impressionism or academic work, rather more symbolism. Gustave Fayet was also an art collector, he owned works by Degas, Manet, Pissarro and above all Paul Gauguin. Fayet was in fact one of Gauguin's main clients and he lent many of the paintings in his collection for the Gauguin exhibitions between 1903 and 1925. In 1908, he bought the Abbaye de Fontfroide, that he reconstructed and where he exhibited many of the paintings from his collection, among them "Day" and "Night" by Odilon Redon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaussan Abbey</span> Benedictine monastery in Aude, France

Gaussan Abbey is a Benedictine monastery situated at Bizanet in the Aude, France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boulaur</span> Commune in Occitania, France

Boulaur is a commune in the Gers department in southwestern France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grandselve Abbey</span> Cistercian abbey in France

Grandselve Abbey was a Cistercian monastery in south-west France, at Bouillac, Tarn-et-Garonne. It was one of the most important Cistercian abbeys in the south of France.

Gerald of Sales was a French monastic reformer from Salles, Lot-et-Garonne near Bergerac, Dordogne in the south-west of France. His feast day is on April 20.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Congregation of the Feuillants</span>

The Feuillants were a Catholic congregation originating in the 1570s as a reform group within the Cistercians in its namesake Les Feuillants Abbey in France, which declared itself an independent order.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Preuilly Abbey</span>

Preuilly Abbey was a Cistercian monastery in Égligny in the Seine-et-Marne department, France. It was located about 21 kilometres south-west of Provins and 15 kilometres east of Montereau-Fault-Yonne.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valmagne Abbey</span> Abbey located in Hérault, in France

Valmagne Abbey is a former Benedictine monastery located near Villeveyrac, Hérault, in south-central France. It is a designated historic monument.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lagrasse Abbey</span>

The Abbey of St. Mary of Lagrasse is a Romanesque abbey in Lagrasse, southern France, whose origins date to the 7th century. It is located in Languedoc, near the Corbières Massif, about 35 km from Carcassonne. It was originally a Benedictine monastery, but since 2004 has been home to a community of canons regular.

Les Feuillants Abbey, also Feuillant Abbey, was a Cistercian monastery located in the present commune of Labastide-Clermont, about 8 kilometres south of Rieumes, department of Haute-Garonne, France. From the 16th century it was the centre of the Cistercian reform movement to which it gave its name, the Feuillants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Igny Abbey</span> Abbey in Marne, France

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cassan Abbey</span>

Cassan Abbey is an 18th-century building in France, classed as a historical monument. It is located in Roujan commune, Hérault département, Occitanie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cadouin Abbey</span>

Cadouin Abbey was a Cistercian monastery founded as a hermitage in 1115 by Gerald of Salles, in the name of Robert of Arbrissel, in what is now the commune of Le Buisson-de-Cadouin in the Dordogne, south-west France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dalon Abbey</span> Former Cistercian monastery in Dordogne, France

Dalon Abbey is a former Cistercian monastery in Sainte-Trie, Dordogne, southwestern France. It is listed as a Historic Monument.

References

43°07′39″N2°53′54″E / 43.127373°N 2.898335°E / 43.127373; 2.898335