Chartreuse Saint-Jean du Liget
The former Carthusian monastery of Chartreuse Saint-Jean du Liget belongs to the French commune of Chemillé-sur-Indrois in the Indre-et-Loire department . The remains of the complex are now part of a private domain in a valley on the road from Montrésor to Loches .
founding
The monastery was founded by the English King Henry II , Count of Anjou . According to an inscription previously placed above the entrance to the Charterhouse , he wanted to atone for the murder of his Chancellor Thomas Becket , Archbishop of Canterbury , which he had instigated . The references to the time of the foundation are not entirely unequivocal and point to the year 1178 or 1188/1189.
The French Revolution left little of the once imposing complex. Today only the ruins of the monastery church on the extensive grounds remind of the time of the foundation in the 12th century. The remaining parts, the gate, the west wing of the monastery complex and the farm buildings, mainly date from the 18th century.
Farm yard
The monumental portal that receives the visitor has, externally and internally respectively, a tympanum with reliefs that the Holy Bruno , founder of the Carthusian and Johannes the Baptist represent.
On the way down there are two pavilions to the right and left of the next passage, also from the 18th century. The one on the left was for the porter, the one on the right served as a dining room for female guests. A little further on the left, on a terrace, are the former outbuildings; there were joinery, glazing, blacksmiths, bakery and the staff kitchens.
At the bottom of the depression, to the left of the still impressive farm building, stands the east-west facing church ruins from the time it was founded. Only the walls of the nave are preserved. The intact gate still has its round arch, and fragments of its small vestibule are still present.
Historical portal
Access to the farm yard
Interior of the church ruin
Monastery complex
Of the large, rectangular monastery complex, only the west wing of the great cloister on the front side is preserved. The openings in the wall, which were used for communication and through which the monks were given their supper, can still be seen in the individual cells, arranged around the outside of the Great Cloister, in which the so-called cloister or cell monks lived. On the west side of the gardens there were basins, fed by the water flowing underground in the valley to the northeast and supplying the cells.
The Charterhouse was surrounded by a high wall, with a crowd watch tower on every corner and a tall watch tower in the northeast. This fortification was built after the Hundred Years War and the Wars of Religion , when Liget had been looted and devastated.
During the French Revolution, the Charterhouse fell to the French state and was sold. The buyers then tore down all buildings with a religious character and sold the building material in the region. A similar procedure was followed with the monastery’s property, which comprises around 2,500 hectares of land and a piece of forest.
Saint-Jean chapel
The Saint-Jean chapel is very close to the Charterhouse . It is a small, unusual rotunda made of white ashlar stones, with arched windows, a cornice that cranks around the windows, an arched frieze and a low conical roof. It is probably the first monastery chapel in the town from the second half of the 12th century. The special thing about the externally unadorned building are the Romanesque frescoes preserved inside. Reproductions of these works are exhibited in the Palais de Chaillot .
La Corroierie
About one kilometer from the Charterhouse, a little off the road, is the medieval farm “La Corroierie”. It used to belong to the Carthusian monastery and the monks managed it. It was fortified in the 15th century; you can still clearly see the gate tower with drawbridge and machicolation.
literature
- Castles on the Loire . The green travel guide. Michelin Reise-Verlag, Landau-Mörlheim 1997, ISBN 2-06-711591-X , p. 239.
- Wilfried Hansmann : The Loire Valley. Castles, churches and cities in the «Garden of France» . 2nd Edition. DuMont, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-7701-3555-5 , pp. 140-141 ( online ).
- Christophe Meunier: La Chartreuse du Liget . Editions Hugues de Chivré, 2007, ISBN 9782916043159 .
Web links
- Ancienne chartreuse du Liget in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
Coordinates: 47 ° 8 ′ 37 " N , 1 ° 7 ′ 53" E