Bernard de Montgaillard

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Abbot Bernard de Montgaillard
Coat of arms of the noble family de Percin

Bernard de Montgaillard (* 1563 presumably in Montgaillard (Aude) ; † June 8, 1628 in Orval Abbey , Belgium ) was a Cistercian abbot and is considered to be the reformer of Orval Abbey.

Live and act

He came from the southern French noble family de Percin and was born the son of Bertrand de Percin, lord of Montgaillard and his wife Antoinette du Vallet.

Bernard de Montgaillard joined the strict Cistercian branch of the Feuillanten in 1579 and fell to King Henry III. from France as a gifted preacher. He therefore brought him to Paris , to his surroundings.

After the king's assassination (1589), Montgaillard was one of the leaders of the Catholic opposition to his successor Henry IV , which is why he finally had to leave Paris in 1593 and went into exile in the Spanish Netherlands .

Here the priest became confidante and court preacher of the regent, Archduke Albrecht VII of Habsburg (1559–1621). Initially a preacher, from 1602 also abbot in Nizelles near Braine-l'Alleud , he was appointed abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Orval in 1605 , where Bernard de Montgaillard reintroduced strict monastic disciplines, renovated the buildings and brought the abbey to a new bloom. To this day he is regarded as the reformer and "second founder" of Orval. Abbot Montgaillard gave the funeral sermon for Archduke Albrecht VII in 1621, which also appeared in print.

Crypt of the Notre-Dame Cathedral Luxembourg, coat of arms of the Orval abbot Bernard de Montgaillard (1563–1628)

Between 1613 and 1621, a large Jesuit church , today's Notre-Dame Cathedral , was built in Luxembourg (City) as the central house of worship . At that time, Luxembourg belonged to the Spanish Netherlands, which is why Archduke Albrecht VII's coat of arms adorns the facade. Abbot Bernard de Montgaillard was involved in the construction, which is probably due to his close relationship with the Archduke. That is why one of the choir's vault stones bore his coat of arms with his name. This choir was demolished in 1935 in favor of an expanded new building. The abbot's coat of arms stone was moved as a spoil into the crypt under the new choir, where it is walled in in the inner entrance area.

The clergyman also wrote various religious scriptures. From the ironworks of the Orval monastery there is a frequently occurring Taken plate (marked 1607) with the Montgaillard coat of arms.

Bernard de Montgaillard died in Orval in 1628, according to contemporary information of "dropsy". He was buried here; his grave has been preserved and his memory is cherished to this day. Out of modesty, he wanted to be buried under a staircase unnoticed. The writer Hugues Rogier published a French biography of the abbot in 2013.

Bishop Pierre-Jean-François de Percin de Montgaillard (1633-1713) of Saint-Pons-de-Thomières was the son of his nephew Pierre-Paul.

literature

  • Pierre Bayle : Historical and Critical Dictionary. Volume 3, Leipzig 1743, p. 418; (Digital scan)
  • Roger Graffin: Bernard de Montgaillard, abbé d'Orval. Dole 1896
  • Hugues Rogier, Bernard de Montgaillard; L'histoire mouvementée d'un grand abbé d'Orval. Neufchâteau, Weyrich Édition, 2013, ISBN 978-2-87489-184-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Family genealogical website
  2. ↑ Didace de Saint Antoine: Description historique, chronologique et geographique du duché de Brabant , Gent, 1756, p. 247; (Digital scan)
  3. ^ German website of the Orval Monastery, with the name of Abbot Bernard de Montgaillard
  4. ^ Digital scan of the funeral sermon
  5. ^ Voices from Maria-Laach , Volume 58, Herder Verlag, Freiburg, 1900, p. 58; (Detail scan)
  6. ^ Complete scan of a book from 1589
  7. ↑ The stove plate in a public collection
  8. ↑ Photo of the stove plate from a private collection
  9. ^ Rainer Eisenschmid, Sven Claude Bettinger: Baedeker Travel Guide Belgium , Baedeker Verlag, 2013, p. 423, ISBN 382979164X ; (Digital scan)
  10. ^ François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon : Correspondance , Volume 11, p. 341, 1829, (digital scan)
personal data
SURNAME Montgaillard, Bernard de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Percin de Montgaillard, Bernard de; Montgaillard, Bernardus de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cistercian abbot in Orval
DATE OF BIRTH 1563
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1628
Place of death Orval Abbey