Saint-Sauveur Abbey (Redon)
The Abbey of Saint-Sauveur in Redon is a Carolingian monastery founded in what is now the Ille-et-Vilaine department , at the confluence of the Oust and Vilaine in the diocese of Vannes , on the border between Neustria and Brittany . Here a local nobleman, Ratvili, had given the Conuvoion and his six companions a piece of land on a desolate hill ( locus desertus ) overlooking the estuary. According to the founding legend, this hill was also the seat of demons who visited the monks with visions and led laypeople to attack the monastery. The monastery followed the Rule of Saint Benedict .
history
Conuvoion ( Conwoïon ) was of aristocratic Breton descent and was educated in the Cathedral of Vannes . Bishop Raginarius had ordained him a deacon. He founded a monastery in Redon in 832 and became its first abbot. Charles the Bald , as well as Bishop Raginarius of Nantes initially refused to support the new monastery, but it was able to win the patronage of Nominoë , the princeps of Brittany. Since 834, however, the monastery was also able to gain the favor of the Carolingians, in 850 Charles II finally awarded it immunity in a diploma and assured its protection. Relations with the successor of Raginarius, Susannus von Nantes (838-848) also seem to have been rather tense, Conuvoion denounced him to the Pope because of his way of life. Finally, Bishop Courantgern (850-868) officially renounced the supervision of the monastery because of the Norman incursions, as it was too dangerous for the monks to travel overland to Vannes for ordination.
When the first benefactor, Ratuili, fell ill, the monks were able to cure him. In gratitude, he gave his son Liberius to the monastery as an oblate and gave him additional land. The monastery also received numerous donations from local free farmers ( machierni ), which of course were often contested by relatives. The monastery also gradually acquired property in the Franconian lands east of the Vilaine. This was rounded off by targeted purchases. Some smaller monasteries seem to have more or less voluntarily submitted to Redon's authority. In 870 there were already 25 monks here.
867 Conuvoion resigned because of his advanced age from his office as abbot and died a year later on January 5th, 868. He was succeeded by Ritcant (867-871). Under his rule, Redon, like the entire estuary of the Loire and Vilaine, suffered from Norman invasions, and the church itself narrowly escaped destruction in 852. The Normans, who had entered the Loire estuary in two fleets, fled to the abandoned church during a storm and lit candles around the altar. According to legend, those of them who drank the altar wine went mad and died while the rest were spared.
The monks of Redon finally withdrew to Auxerre in 921 and to Poitou in 924 and were only able to return to their locus sanctus at the end of the 10th century .
The monastery was dissolved in the course of the French Revolution in 1790.
buildings
Two churches were built in Redon under Conwoïon, consecrated to Christ the Redeemer ( Sanctus Salvator ) and the Holy Madonna. The first church, built in Romanesque style, was consecrated on October 28, 832/833. The altar contained the relics of the Bishop of Angers , Hypothemius (Apodemius), which Conuvoion had come into possession of through rather dubious methods. Later, the remains of Marcellinus of Angers were added by a gift from Pope Leo IV . Relics of the Breton Saint Melor have also been in Redon since 849.
The monastery itself consisted of a dormitory, gatehouse, guest house, a hospice and a garden in which Saint Condeloc worked, who, among other things, was able to end a caterpillar plague by invoking the Holy Trinity . The monastery must also have already had an archive that contained several hundred documents when Conuvoion died. Approx. 350 manuscripts from this period have survived, but it is certain that between 1773 and 1856 documents were lost (Smith 2001, 373). In 863, the princeps Salomon (857–874) gave the monastery the Plélan country estate , where Conuvoion also had a stone church built. It contained the relics of St. Maxentius from Poitou .
The church of St. Sauveur still has a Romanesque tower, parts of the vestibule have also been preserved. The main nave with an octagonal dome was enlarged in the 12th century in the Gothic style, the choir dates from the 13th century.
Abbots
- Conwoïon (832-867)
- Ritcant (867-871).
- Almond (1062-1084)
swell
- Gesta Sanctorum Rotonensium
- A. de Courson, Cartulaire de Redon (Paris 1863).
- Brett, Vita Conuuionis
- Annales Rotonensis, around 919
literature
- Julia Smith: The making of a ninth-century holy place. In: Mayke de Jong, Francis Theuws (Ed.): Topographies of power in the early Middle Ages. Series: Transformation of the Roman world, 6. Brill, Leiden 2001, ISSN 1386-4165 , pp. 361-395.
- Wendy Davies: The composition of the Redon cartulary. In: Francia , Jg. 17, 1990, H. 1, P. 69 ff.
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 39 '0 " N , 2 ° 5' 2.3" W.