Fontenay Abbey

Fontenay Cistercian Abbey
Fontenay Abbey, church (right) and east wing
location	France Region Bourgogne Franche-Comté department Côte-d'Or
Coordinates:	47 ° 38 '27 "  N , 4 ° 23' 23"  E Coordinates: 47 ° 38 '27 "  N , 4 ° 23' 23"  E
Serial number according to Janauschek	12
founding year	1119
Year of dissolution / annulment	1791
Mother monastery	Clairvaux Monastery
Primary Abbey	Clairvaux Monastery
Daughter monasteries	Les Écharlis Monastery Sept-Fons Monastery Chézery Monastery Marcilly Monastery

Fontenay Cistercian Abbey
UNESCO world heritage
National territory:	France
Type:	Culture
Criteria :	(iv)
Surface:	5.77 hectares
Buffer zone:	1397 ha
Reference No .:	165bis
UNESCO region :	Europe and North America
History of enrollment
Enrollment:	1981  ( session 5 )
Extension:	2007

The Fontenay Abbey ( Latin Fontanetum ) is a in 1118 by Bernard of Clairvaux founded Cistercian monastery in France , which since 1981 to UNESCO World Heritage Site belongs.

location

The Abbey of Fontenay, one of the largest in Burgundy , is located in the department of Côte-d'Or , about 60 kilometers northwest of the city of Dijon , about six kilometers from Montbard away, in a remote, original river valley. It has the oldest surviving Cistercian church. The location corresponds to the Cistercian tradition of building monasteries in remote valleys on a watercourse. Since fish was the main ingredient in Cistercian cuisine , creeks dammed up in ponds are often part of the appearance of Cistercian abbeys. The surrounding wilderness avoided the distraction and temptation of the secular businesses of the towns and villages. The D 32 road, which leads from Marmagne to Touillon, today connects the former monastery with the outside world.

history

Fontenay was founded in 1118 by St. Bernard of Clairvaux as a subsidiary ( filiation ) of the Clairvaux Primary Abbey . The building is a manifesto of the strict Cistercian Romanesque and largely corresponds to the original condition. Fontenay quickly developed into a leading spiritual center in the region: the monks produced valuable manuscripts and achieved success in medicine and medicine in the High Middle Ages. Hundreds of monks lived in Fontenay in the 13th century.

Monastery life ended with the French Revolution in 1789: in 1791 the last nine monks left Fontenay. After the sale, Élie de Montgolfier set up a paper mill in the abbey buildings , and the basilica was increasingly threatened with decay.

In 1906, the wealthy brothers Edouard and René Aynard bought the entire abbey and began the extensive restoration , which continues to this day. It is only thanks to the efforts of the Aynards that Fontenay, in its restored condition, was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1981 .

In 1997 Fontenay celebrated the 850th anniversary of the consecration of its monastery church.

construction

The abbey is divided into the areas of the basilica , the monastery with dormitory , refectory and chapter house , the abbot's palace, the farm buildings and the monastery gardens.

basilica

Floor plan of the abbey church

West facade of the abbey church

Interior of the abbey church

The abbey church was built from 1139 to 1147. Since her consecration by Pope Eugene III. In 1147 the basilica underwent only minor changes.

The facade is broken up by seven arched windows - the symbolic number of Christian tradition - three at the top and four at the bottom. This is not only of architectural importance. The three, which is not divisible by any other number, is the classic number of the divine trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The three stands for the comprehensive, the holiness and perfection, for the world of the spiritual. A secular city is mainly characterized by four arcades in artistic representations of the Middle Ages, the Heavenly Jerusalem always by three arcades.

The four is a very central symbolic number, and it stands in general for the realm of the worldly. First of all, in the Middle Ages, matter was divided into the four elements fire, water, earth and air. Then there are four cardinal virtues in human life [bravery (fortitudo), prudence (prudentia), temperance (temperantia) and justice (iustitia)], the four temperaments (choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic and sanguine), the four church fathers (Ambrosius, Augustine) , Jerome and Gregory the Great), the four cardinal points, the four ends of the world, the four times of day, etc. So much for the symbolism of numbers.

Following the ideal of the order, the Cistercian churches - and you can see that on the facade of Fontenay - are simple, strict and clear. The rules of the order forbade towers, only roof turrets and the small bell ( matine ) that called to prayer at four in the morning were allowed. Figurative capital decorations, sculpted portals and ornamentation were also prohibited, as was brightly colored window glazing. In this the Cistercians stand in sharp contrast to the contemporary Romanesque architecture, above all to Cluny, and this later made them co-propagators of the Gothic style in its ascetic version. This scheme loosened up later and something will repeat itself which also happened in Cluny, the starting point of the movement. The initial asceticism could not be sustained.

The eight-bay church is 66 meters long (Cluny III was about three times as large) and 16.70 meters high. It fits the atmosphere of this church very well that there are no benches or the like in the interior and that there is actually no floor except for well-trodden clay. The original impression of the 12th century has been completely preserved. The central nave of Fontenay is - as in Cluny III - vaulted up to the choir by the Burgundian pointed barrel on mighty transverse straps.

But there is no window zone, the lighting comes from the side aisles and the dense window groups on the entrance wall, on the choir walls and on the ends of the transepts. The interior either remained exposed to stone or was plastered and painted with white joints, the only permitted color - the robes of the Cistercians were also colorless. Otherwise the towerless building received neither sculptural nor picturesque decoration.

The treatment of the stone was extremely careful and clean - and therefore expensive. Sometimes it was possible to build without mortar. This ascetic simplicity was extremely popular. In a very short time - together with the order - the designs of the Cistercians spread all over Europe. Their first buildings were made of wood. Stone buildings were not built until the second generation of the order under Bernhard von Clairvaux.

The sublime, simple, three-aisled basilica guards the larger-than-life stone statue of the "Madonna of Fontenay" from the 13th century. In the choir, which stretches behind the high columns and which once had a small gallery, from which the disabled could watch the service without having to go down the steps from the adjoining hospital ward, there are tombstones of Burgundian nobles from the 13th century Heyday of the abbey. The Gothic altar also dates from the 13th century .

Fontenay Abbey: cloister, above the dormitory

Dormitory

A staircase leads from the southern transept to the dormitory, the monks' dormitory, which is always above the chapter house. It is 56 meters long, the beams are made of oak and dates from around 1450. The monks slept in the unheated, dimly lit room on sacks of straw under a woolen blanket and were hardly separated from each other. There were only two rows separated by a central aisle. Within these rows, the berths were only separated by simple, low partitions.

In the course of the Middle Ages, however, the Cistercians placed higher wooden partitions between the beds; This resulted in open cabins that were closed off by curtains from the aisle, allowing at least a certain degree of privacy. Doors with peepholes have also been permitted since the 15th century. The younger brothers often slept between the older ones as a check. The abbot looked to see whether there was any special property in the beds that violated the poverty law.

Fontenay Abbey, cloister inside

Fontenay Abbey, dovecote

In the beginning it was customary that, according to the Benedictine rule, all monks should sleep together in one room, so that the dormitory could be very large, sometimes larger than the nave. Later there were deviations from this rule, but even then the monks spent the night at least in groups of 10 or 20. Most of the dormitories had two entrances, one directly to the transept of the church, the second to the monastery courtyard or to the latrines. With all this, the lights should never go out - darkness creates fear and makes control difficult.

Other parts of the plant

The cloister , which closes around a green courtyard and has excellently crafted capitals, is considered a masterpiece of the Romanesque period . The adjoining chapter house , in which council and judgment were once held and in which the clergy exchanged ideas or carried out their studies, already heralds the Gothic through some shapes on columns and windows . The only permanently heated room in the monastery was the chauffoir (calefactorium, warming room), which was mainly used for typing, as it has two huge chimneys (next to which the ink was kept in small niches) by which the monks (who clammy Fingers).

The herb gardens, which have been restored according to old models, border the hospital ward, in which the sick in the region were cared for, and the forge , which with its huge drop hammer (a forerunner of the steam hammer ) was an important source of income for the monastery. In the 15th century the curious pigeon tower, which referred to the monks' hunting rights, and the dog kennel were built.

The abbot's palace from the 18th century, in a playful Rococo style, is now the residence of the Aynard family.

literature

• David A. Hanser: The Architecture of France. Greenwood Press, Westport CT et al. a. 2006, ISBN 0-313-31902-2 , pp. 71-77 ( excerpt from Google book search).

Movie

• Documentation by Kurt Feyerabend and Werner Brüssau from 1995 in the series Treasures of the World - Heritage of Mankind

Web links

Commons : Fontenay Abbey  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• www.abbayedefontenay.com (French; English)