Saint-Paul de Cormery Abbey
The Saint-Paul de Cormery Abbey is a former Benedictine monastery in the commune of Cormery in the Indre-et-Loire department in France .
As a monastic foundation of the abbot Ithier of Saint-Martin from the year 791, Saint-Paul was raised to an abbey by Alcuin in the year 800 , who submitted to the Benedictine rule. From that time until the abbeys were dissolved during the Revolution, it was under the Abbey of Saint-Martin de Tours . Despite the damage caused by the Normans in the second half of the 9th century, the abbey grew rapidly - and the village of Cormery around it. In the Middle Ages, Saint-Paul owned extensive estates in several French provinces (except the Touraine in Anjou , Blésois , Dunois , Champagne , Burgundy , Normandy and Poitou ; in 1666 there were a total of 31 priories and property in another 28 Parishes), his ships could move freely on all the rivers of the kingdom: Cormery was one of the most important abbeys in Touraine.
However , Saint-Paul was unable to recover from the stresses caused by the Hundred Years War and the Huguenot Wars . Despite the intervention of the Maurinians from 1662 onwards, the abbey did not regain its old importance and was already weakened when the monasteries were closed in 1790 and the monks were expelled. The buildings were sold as national goods, cannibalized and later rebuilt.
In the 21st century, there are still important remains of the Abbey of Saint-Paul de Cormery, scattered in the landscape where its unity between the current structures is difficult to see: the Tour Saint-Paul, the abbey bell tower, a Gothic one Chapel of the choir , the largely restored refectory , part of the gallery of the cloister . At the edge of the cloister are the lodgings of the abbot, the prior and the sacristan . Between 1908 and 1933, with the exception of the sacristan's lodgings, these remains were classified as monuments.
literature
- Agence Bailly-Leblanc et Thalweg Paysage: Commune de Cormery - élaboration d'une aire de mise en valeur de l'architecture et du patrimoine - diagnostic AVAP.
- Octave Bobeau: Les églises de Cormery (Indre-et-Loire). Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, 1908, pp. 344-370
- Jean-Jacques Bourassé: Cartulaire de Cormery, précédé de l'histoire de l'abbaye et de la ville de Cormery, d'après les chartes. Mémoire de la Société archéologique de Touraine, Tours, Volume 12, 1861, pp. 1-325
- Philippe Chapu: L'abbaye de Cormery, visite guidée. Bulletin de la société des amis du pays lochois, December 1991, pp. 119-138
- Annick Chupin: Cormery 1791-1820. Le dépeçage d'une abbaye millénaire. Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Touraine, Volume 44, 1995, pp. 537-550
- Annick Chupin: Historiens de l'abbaye de Cormery au XVIIe siècle: Dom Yves Gaigneron et Dom Gilbert Gérard. Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Touraine, Volume 46, 2000, pp. 253-268
- Annick Chupin: Alcuin et Cormery. Annales de Bretagne et des pays de l'Ouest, Presses universitaires de Rennes, Volume 112, No. 3, 2004, pp. 103-112
- Charles Lelong: Vestiges romans de l'abbatiale de Cormery. Bulletin Monumental, Vol. 124, No. 4, 1966, pp. 381-387
- Charles Lelong: Encore Cormery… Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Touraine, Volume 44, 1996, pp. 785-791
- Frédéric Lesueur: Cormery. In: Congrès archéologique de France, CVIe session tenue à Tours en 1948, Paris, Société française d'archéologie, 1949, pp. 82–110
- Valérie Mauret-Cribellier: L'abbaye bénédictine Saint-Paul de Cormery (Indre-et-Loire). Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Touraine, Volume 44, 1994, pp. 119-144
- Michel-J. Peutin: Cormery: mille ans d'histoire d'une abbaye. Truyes, Cadic, 1986, 18 pages
Coordinates: 47 ° 16 '8 " N , 0 ° 50' 38" E