Chancelade Abbey
The abbey Chancelade is located in Chancelade , a French commune in the Dordogne department in the region Nouvelle-Aquitaine .
geography
The Abbey of Chancelade, also Notre-Dame Abbey of Chancelade , in the French Abbeye Notre-Dame de Chancelade , is located in the municipality of Chancelade , around 5 kilometers northwest of the city center of Périgueux .
history
founding
In 1096, Pope Urban II wanted the monks of the Saint-Pierre de Cellefrouin Abbey to join the Charroux monastery . Since this means a transition from the rule of the Augustinians to the Benedictines , the abbot Foucault opposes this decision and settles as a hermit in Fons Cancellatus , the Latin name for the source of Chancelade. This is considered to be the founding date of the later abbey. The location of the source is marked by a plaque commemorating Alain de Solminihac .
The abbot Foucault was then joined by other monks, so that a community was created.
The first abbot of Chancelade, Gérard de Montlau , was blessed in 1128 by Guillaume d'Auberoche , bishop of Périgueux. The monks then decide to build a monastery. They are building the abbey church together with the enclosed convent buildings and a small parish church in the immediate vicinity. Both churches were consecrated by Raymond de Mareuil on October 12, 1147 - the Abbey Church of the Virgin Mary and the Parish Church of St. Magdalena.
Around 1140 Geoffroi de Cauzé donated the lands of Merlande to the abbey . The monks build a chapel at the local spring, which is soon expanded and developed into a separate priory .
In 1360 the abbey had 22 members. Since she submits to the protection of Cardinal Hélie de Talleyrand-Périgord , she receives 3800 guilders as a gift and can use it to recruit another 38 clergy.
status
Chancelade Abbey has been an abbey committed to the rules of St. Augustine since 1133 , and its monks belong to the Augustinian Canons .
In 1635, Alain de Solminihac opposed the Congrégation de France founded by Cardinal Rochefoucaud . His efforts at the Reformation were forbidden, but the Chancelade Abbey was granted permission to continue to exist as an independent congregation.
Wars, looting and destruction
The English occupied Périgueux from 1360 to 1367. They chase the monks away and quarter their own garrison in the monastery. But after his return from Spain, Bertrand du Guesclin was able to recapture the abbey. As soon as he leaves, however, the English move up again and stay until the 15th century .
Around 1440, under the patronage of Arnaud de Bourdeille and thanks to their Abbot Geoffroy de Pompadour, the community made a fresh start.
During the Huguenot Wars , Périgueux was conquered by the Huguenots in 1575 . Langoiran then seizes the abbey, which is looted and pillaged. Of the abbey church, only the crossing with its dome and the church tower survive. The vault of the nave and the Romanesque choir are destroyed.
New beginning
When Alain de Solminihac took over the abbey in 1614, there were only four monks left. After receiving the blessing from Monseigneur de la Béraudière in the Saint-Front cathedral in Périgueux in 1622 , he set about rebuilding the half-destroyed abbey church and reconstructing the cloister, the residential wing and the convent buildings. At the same time he carries out reforms and recruits new order members.
Alain de Solminihac is on June 17, 1636 by Pope Leo XIII. appointed Bishop of Cahors . In 1638 he returned to Chancelade to inaugurate the rebuilt abbey church (Alain de Solminihac was beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 4, 1981 , his remains are in the Cathedral of Cahors ).
In the 18th century , the abbot Jean IV. Antoine Le Gros de Beler (1730–1763) encouraged his monks to study, and the library was enriched with maps and 4,000 books. In the scriptorium Documents & Records manuscripts copied classified - intensive work. Here, Father Prunis discovers the diary of Montaigne's travels , which is in an old suitcase in the tower of the library. It was published in Rome in 1774.
Temporary loss of the former religious functions
The abbey was sold as a national good during the French Revolution in 1790 .
Numerous documents are sent to the Bibliothèque nationale de France and are now available there as 183 volumes. Several hundred works can be found in the Périgueux city library, including a copy of the copy book .
At the beginning of the 19th century , the abbey church became a parish church.
reopening
After the renovation of the farm buildings started in 1955 by the owners Mr. and Mrs. Caignard, the abbey opened its doors to pilgrims and the public in 1975. After another temporary closure between 2004 and 2009, it has now been open again since 2010. From 1998 a group of Augustinian canons settled in Chancelade Abbey. In 2004 the diocese gave the group the abbot's house and park that had been bought from the Caignard family in order to set up a spiritual center here.
architecture
From the once very important abbey, built in the Romanesque style of the 12th century , only the abbey church and part of the convent buildings, such as the rectory, have survived. The original abbey church underwent significant structural changes in the 14th , 16th and 17th centuries .
Abbey church
The abbey church, which faces east-southeast, is a Romanesque building with a cross-shaped floor plan. Only the lower wall sections and the windows remain of the former building from the 12th century. The nave was provided with five pointed arches in 1630 . The crossing is covered with a pendentive dome on which a square church tower rises. The choir was completely rebuilt in the 17th century and a sacristy was added. The choir stalls made of 64 walnut chairs in it come from the same period.
Just 50 meters southwest of the entrance portal to the abbey church is the east-northeast-oriented Saint-Jean chapel, which was consecrated to John the Baptist in the same year 1147. This small Romanesque building from the 12th century, measuring only 19 × 5 meters, was originally covered with stone slabs. Your vault consists of a pointed barrel . The semicircular apse has an apse dome . The chapel was registered as a monument historique in 1912 independently of the abbey church .
View of the park, the abbey church (left)
and the abbot's house (right)
Abbey church 
Entrance portal 
Nave 
pulpit 
Choir stalls 
Frescoes above the choir stalls 
Mocking Christ
(G. Van Hornthorst)
Saint Jean Chapel 
Nave of the chapel
Rectory
The rectory is called Logis de Bourdeilles . It is attached to the north-west corner of the abbey church. It was built in the 15th century and underwent major structural changes again in the 17th century.
Convent building
At the southeast corner of the abbey church is the abbot's house, which began in the 13th century but was completely renovated in the 18th century. It is three-story, with the basement being built up from a row of eight basket arches . The farm buildings consist of a wash house, a pantry , a residential wing and a mill . The wash house extends the rectory and is a stately building from the 15th century, which was given a flat arched vault in the 16th century. The right-angled pantry in the northwest dates back to the 14th century, additional vaulted ribs were added in the 17th century. A residential wing branches off from the pantry to the south-east, to which a fortified mill connects at a right angle, which supplied the flour for the abbey. Certain parts of the wing are from the 14th century, but most of them are from the 15th and 16th centuries. The mill, whose Romanesque openings will later be closed again, is fed by a branch of the Beauronne . The northeast part of the rectangular structure dominates this inflow completely.
The rectory, the abbot's house, the entrance gate, the farm buildings, the terraces and gardens, the enclosure, the bridge, the mill and the abbey church are all registered as monument historique. The construction period of these buildings extends from the 12th to the 17th century.
Rectory Le logis de Bourdeilles 
Rectory, rear view 
Abbot house 
Small bridge in the park
over an arm of the Beauronne
.JPG)
Protective measures
The abbey church has been a classified building of the Monument historique since 1909 . Between 1942 and 2008, other parts of the abbey were placed under protection.
Personalities associated with the abbey
- Nicolas Baudeau , Cancelade monk and economist.
- Guillaume Vivien Suffering , monk of Cancelade and historian.
- Joseph Prunis , prior and after 1789 politician.
See also
literature
- Christian Corvisier, Congrès archéologique de France. 156e session: Monuments en Périgord . Société française d'archéologie, Paris 1998, p. 358-361 .
- JD de La Roche: Notice sur l'abbaye de Chancelade . In: Le Chroniqueur du Périgord et du Limousin . 1854, p. 31-34 .
- François Deshoulières: Chancelade . In: Congrès archéologique de France 90e session . Société française d'archéologie, Paris, 1928, Périgueux 1927, pp. 296-308 .
- Bernard Reviriego: Chancelade - Les chemins de la mémoire . municipalité de Chancelade, Chancelade 1994.
- Bernard Reviriego: Le Christ aux outrages de Chancelade . municipalité de Chancelade, Chancelade 1997.
- Jean Secret and Bernard Dupré: L'abbaye de Chancelade en Périgord . Fanlac, 1978.
- Jean Secret: Périgord roman . éditions Zodiaque (collection la nuit des temps no 27), La Pierre-qui-Vire, 1979, p. 20-21 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Base Mérimée, French minister of culture: Ancienne abbaye de Chancelade . In: notice no PA00082470 . 1992.
Coordinates: 45 ° 12 ′ 27 ″ N , 0 ° 40 ′ 0.1 ″ E