Saint-Maur de Glanfeuil Abbey

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Saint-Maur de Glanfeuil

The former Abbey of Saint-Maur de Glanfeuil (also Abbey of Saint-Maur-sur-Loire ) is located in the district of Saint-Maur-sur-Loire of Le Thoureil in the French department of Maine-et-Loire on the left bank of the Loire between Saumur and Angers It was founded in the 9th century and dissolved in 1908.

Founding legend

According to a legendary account attributed to Faustus, a pupil of Benedict of Nursias , Innocentius, Bishop of Le Mans , sent his vicar Adenard to the Montecassino Abbey so that Benedict could send some monks to Gaul. Benedict selected twelve monks, including Maurus and Faustus. Maurus founded Glanfeuil Abbey as the first Benedictine abbey in Gaul. This legend is based in part on Maurus' report in the Dialogue of Gregory the Great .

Today's view is that Maurus is a historical figure, whereas the Vita des Faustus is an invention of Odo von Glanfeuil , Abbot of Saint-Maur des Fossés from around 868.

history

There are no reliable accounts of the original founding of Glanfeuil Abbey. Excavations from the late 19th century revealed a possible Merovingian monastery built on the ruins of a Roman villa . Glanfeuil is first mentioned in the middle of the 8th century when it was owned by Gaidulf of Ravenna, who exhausted its resources until the monastery itself was little more than a ruin

By 830 the abandoned monastery was owned by Rorgon I, Earl of Maine , possibly through his wife Bilchilde. Together they started the reconstruction. Glanfeuil was subordinated in 833 by Emperor Ludwig the Pious Abbot Ingelbert of Saint-Pierre-des-Fossés , who sent some monks, including Gauzbert , the brother of Count Rorgon. Ludwig's Chancellor Ebroin , who became Bishop of Poitiers in 839 , appointed Gauzlin, the son of Gauzbert, abbot in 844. During the tenure of Abbot Gauzlin around 845, supposed relics of St. Maurus were discovered. On July 14, 847, King Charles the Bald Ebroin confirmed the ownership of the abbey, apparently without the supervision of Saint-Pierre-des-Fossés, hereditary in his family.

In 862, due to the threat of Norman attacks, Abbot Odo and the monks gave up Glanfeuil and took the relics of St. Maurus with. They settled in Saint-Pierre-des-Fossés, where Odo was then elected to succeed the late Abbot Geoffroi. “At the time of the evacuation of Glanfeuil, he pretended to have discovered a Vita of Saint Maurus, written by Saint Maurus' companion Faustus, another disciple of Saint Benedict.” Saint-Pierre Abbey became due to Maurus -Relics renamed Saint-Maur-des-Fossés. The original monastery was rebuilt as a fortified priory of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, but finally gained its independence in 1096 on the occasion of a passage by Pope Urban II .

Glanfeuil was disbanded in 1790 during the Revolution . A hundred years later, in 1890, it was revitalized by Louis-Charles Couturier , OSB, Abbot of Solesmes , as part of his program to revive monasticism in post-revolutionary France. However, in 1901 the monks had to leave France due to the anti-clerical laws of the Third French Republic . After finding temporary refuge in Baronville, Belgium (now part of the parish of Beauraing ), the monks began to look for permanent homes. After various attempts had failed, it was finally decided in 1908 for Clervaux in Luxembourg . The monastic community decided to dissolve the existing monastery and to found the monastery of St. Mauritius and St. Maurus in Clervaux.

Glanfeuil Abbey is now managed by the OVAL (Organization de Vacances, Animations et Loisirs), which runs a training center and holiday colony here. The facility is a listed building. Remains of the monastery buildings from the 12th and 13th centuries have been preserved, as well as the west facade of the abbey church from the 12th century.

literature

  • Jean François Bodin revu et complété par Paul Godet, Recherches historiques sur la ville de Saumur, ses monuments et ceux de son arrondissement , Saumur, 1845, volume 1, chap. 43, p. 224
  • Jean Favier , Saint-Maur-sur-Loire , in: Dictionnaire de la France médiévale , 1993
  • Martyrologium Romanum , Saint Maurus, Abbot , Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2001
  • Herbert Bloch , Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages , Harvard University Press, 1988

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Base Mérimée
  2. ↑ Favier dates the founding to the year 543 and names King Theudebert I as the founder alongside Maurus .
  3. ^ Martyrologium Romanum
  4. ↑ Bloch
  5. ↑ Bloch
  6. ^ Susan Wood, The Proprietary Church in the Medieval West. (2006) Oxford University Press, p. 343
  7. ↑ Bloch
  8. ↑ Bodin / Godet
  9. ↑ Favier
  10. ↑ Michael Ott, Louis-Charles Couturier. The Catholic Encyclopedia Volume 4. New York, 1908, accessed November 5, 2017
  11. ^ Website of the Clervaux Abbey
  12. ^ Base Mérimée
  13. ↑ Favier

Coordinates: 47 ° 22 ′ 11 ″  N , 0 ° 15 ′ 52 ″  W.