Ste-Croix Abbey (Poitiers)

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Church of Sainte-Radegonde , in the background the Cathedral of Poitiers

The Abbey Sainte-Croix in Poitiers was after several years of planning around the year 558 of Radegundis founded when they running away from her husband, the king of the Franks I. Clotaire was. Sainte-Croix was the first women's monastery in Europe.

history

The church was consecrated under the name Sainte-Marie-Hors-les-Murs because the abbey was outside the Roman city walls but still within the loop of the Clain River. The first abbess was Agnes von Poitiers († 588) after the queen had refused this office. Agnes made the nuns subject to the monastic rule of St. Caesarius of Arles († 542), which was later replaced by the Benedictine rule. When 567 fragments of the Holy Cross arrived, which the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I († 565) had given the monastery, the abbey was renamed Sainte-Croix. After the death of the founder ( 587 ), the church was renamed Sainte-Radegonde in her honor.

Until the 13th century the church was rebuilt several times. It still has the forecourt in medieval dimensions. This forecourt was a court square surrounded by stone benches , where the clerical judges judged the religious and civil affairs of the settlement.

A settlement developed around the church, which was destroyed several times and therefore fortified in the 10th century. With the city wall of Eleanor of Aquitaine , the monastery was then integrated into the city of Poitiers in the 12th century . The fortifications of the village of Sainte-Croix were demolished in the 19th century to allow the construction of a road and other churches. However, the Sainte-Radegonde church was preserved.

Sainte-Croix Abbey in Saint-Benoît

In the second half of the 20th century, the nuns left the city center. They bought a Jesuit country house seven kilometers outside of Poitiers and in 1965 they moved into the newly built monastery in the municipality of Saint-Benoît in the Vienne department . The new Abbey of Sainte-Croix in Saint-Benoît is also known as the Abbey of Sainte-Croix de La Cossonnière because of its location in the 29 hectare domain of La Cossonnière crossed by the Miosson River .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Abbaye Sainte-Croix de Saint-Benoît official website of the Diocese of Poitiers (French)
  2. ↑ Abbaye Sainte-Croix official website of the municipality of Saint-Benoît in the Vienne department (French)

Coordinates: 46 ° 34 ′ 47.3 "  N , 0 ° 21 ′ 7"  E