Lobbes Abbey

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The Saint-Pierre de Lobbes Abbey was a Benedictine abbey in Lobbes in Hainaut . It was founded by Landelin von Crespin around 660/670 and played a prominent role in the religious life of the Diocese of Liège in the Middle Ages . In 1794 it was burned down by revolutionaries .

history

According to tradition, the nobleman and former mugger Landelin settled in today's Lobbes and founded a hermitage with an undoubtedly still wooden chapel Saint-Pierre to venerate relics of the apostle Peter , which he had brought from Rome. The hermitage became a monastic community, which Landelin left again to settle a few kilometers further in the solitude at the point where the Aulne Abbey was later built .

The community in Lobbes was entrusted to his follower Ursmar , who formed a monastery out of the group, whose prior and later first abbot he became, and who is therefore considered the actual founder of Lobbes Abbey. The Pippinids already played a decisive role in his appointment , who wanted to establish Lobbes as a regional counterpoint to the Bishop of Cambrai . In 697 a new church was consecrated, which Landelin had commissioned, then another on a nearby hill, the later collegiate church of Saint-Ursmer de Lobbes, which was to serve as a burial church, as there was no one in the monastery church due to the St. Peter's relics was allowed to be buried.

The next abbots of Lobbes were Ermin (711–737) and Abel († 764), whose sarcophagi are in the crypt of the Saint-Ursmer collegiate church. In 751/754, when Pippin the Younger came to power, Lobbes became a royal monastery and subsequently also an intellectual center of the region, with a library whose holdings already comprised 347 volumes at the end of the 8th century. The monks devoted themselves to the writing of life descriptions of saints, including a Vita Ermini , which comes from Abbot Anson (776-800). A scriptorium was created and a miniature painting studio . At the request of Charlemagne , the associated training center was then established in the abbey.

The abbey experienced its first crisis after Hugbert , the brother-in-law of King Lothar II , became lay abbot of Lobbes through usurpation and he succeeded in driving the abbey to the brink of ruin in a short time. With his abbot Franco († 903), who had been bishop of Liège since 856 and took over the office in Lobbes in 881, the status of a royal monastery was then lost and the time when the abbey was so closely linked to the diocese (889 transfer of the Abbatiat the bishop through Arnulf of Carinthia ) that up to Bishop Ebrachar († 971) the bishops were also abbots of Lobbes. Only with Aletran, which was sent to Lobbes by Ebrachar, did the abbey regain part of its independence. The years of personal union were part of the great age of Lobbes Abbey, which lasted until the end of the 11th century. The abbey's scholasters were in great demand at the time: Thierry de Leernes († 1087), for example, taught in Stablo , Verdun , Mousson and Fulda before becoming abbot in Saint-Hubert . The Lobbes Bible (1084), which is now in Tournai and for which the monk Goderan is known as the calligrapher , was created in the scriptorium .

A new monastery church will be built by the beginning of the 10th century at the latest. It was consecrated in 920 by Bishop Stephan von Lüttich (and Abbot von Lobbes). Abbot Folcuin (965–990) adds a cloister. He is also the author of the Chronicle Gesta abbatum Laubiensum , which is considered a credible source on the history of the abbey. Abbot Heriger has an oratory built, which is consecrated to Benedict of Nursia . The abbey is now so rich that in 1036 a new monastery church was consecrated again, larger than all previous ones, but which was only completed under Abbot Adélard (1053-1077).

In 1130/31 the Cluniac reform found its way into Lobbes, which then lost its importance from the 13th century: short terms of office of non-monastery abbots and loss of property characterized this period. Around 1497 monastic life was renewed by the Bursfeld Congregation , so that in 1550 Abbot Caulier laid the foundation stone for a new, fourth monastery church. Under the direction of Dominique Capron, the building, which was consecrated in 1576 under Abbot Ermin François, is the church that can be seen in the illustrations from the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1569 Lobbes, the Abbey of Saint-Vaast and a number of other monasteries were combined to form the Benedictine Congregation of the Exempten Abbeys of Flanders .

The wars after the outbreak of the French Revolution were devastating for Lobbes. The monastery buildings are burned down in 1794, the 43 monks under the abbot Vulgise de Vigneron elected the previous year are chased away. The abbey is officially dissolved in 1796, the ruins are sold as national property, the stones are used in 1816–1817 to reinforce the walls of the city of Charleroi .

The two remains of the abbey of some importance are the Porte de Thudinie and La Portelette access to the abbey from the road to Binche , which undoubtedly dates from the time of Abbot Ursmer Rancelot († 1718), and the sepulcher Saint-Ursmer, which as Parish church survived and is now one of the oldest churches in Belgium. Some small buildings were integrated into the Lobbes train station.

  • Entrance to the abbey

  • Lobbes in the 18th century, with the monastery church of Saint-Pierre in the center and the grave church of Saint-Ursmar on the right in the background

  • Saint-Ursmar

Abbots

  • Ursmar († 713), resignation 711
  • Ermin († 737)
  • Abel († 764), Bishop of Reims for a short time from 744
  • Theodulf († 776)
  • Anson († 800)
  • Ramneric († probably 823) ( Carolingian )
  • Fulrad, † 826, 823 Abbot ( Carolingian )
  • ...
  • Hugo , † 836
  • ...
  • Hugbert , († 864) lay abbot 864
  • 864/881 several lay abbots
  • Franco († 903), 856 Bishop of Liège , 881 Abbot of Lobbes
  • Stephan († 920), 903 Bishop of Liège
  • Hilduin († 936), 920-1 Bishop of Liège, then Bishop of Verona and Archbishop of Milan
  • Richard († 945) from the Matfriede family , 921 Bishop of Liège
  • Hugo I († 947), 945 Bishop of Liège
  • Florebert II († 953), 947 Bishop of Liège
  • Rather († 974), 953–955 Bishop of Liège, also Bishop of Verona
  • Balderich I († 959), 955 Bishop of Liège
  • Ebrachar († 971), 959 Bishop of Liège
  • Aletran, used by Ebrachar in Lobbes in 960
  • Folcuin , Abbot 965–990 ( Carolingian )
  • Heriger († 1007) Abbot 990–1007
  • ...
  • Adelard, abbot 1053-1077

literature

  • Annales Laubicenses, Georg Heinrich Pertz (ed.), MGH Scriptores
  • Théophile Lejeune: L'ancienne abbaye de Lobbes , 1859 online
  • Joachim Vos: Lobbes, son abbaye et son chapitre, ou histoire complète du monastère de Saint-Pierre à Lobbes et du Chapitre de Saint-Ursmer à Lobbes et à Binche: avec cartes, vues et portraits , 2 volumes, 1865 Volume 1 online 1865 Volume 2 online
  • Théophile Lejeune: Monographie de l'ancienne Abbaye de St. Pierre de Lobbes , Mons, 1883.
  • Dom Ursmer Berlière: Monasticon Belge , Volume I, 1890, pp. 197–228.
  • Charles Herbermann: Benedictine Abbey of Lobbes , in: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) online
  • Édouard de Moreau: Histoire de l'Église en Belgique , 1945.
  • Simon Brigode: Les anciennes abbatiales et l'église carolingienne Saint-Ursmer de Lobbes , 1949.
  • AG Hornaday: The Estate and Archive of St. Peter of Lobbes c. 650-c.1050 (Diss. San Diego 1984)
  • A. Dierkens: Abbayes et chapitres entre Sambre et Meuse (VIIe-XIe siècles) , 1985
  • Hubert Seibert: Lobbes, Saint-Pierre de . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 5, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-7608-8905-0 , Sp. 2061 f.

Coordinates: 50 ° 20 ′ 50 ″  N , 4 ° 15 ′ 40 ″  E