Bellevaux monastery

Bellevaux Cistercian Abbey
preserved abbey building (around 1900)
location	France Region Franche-Comté Haute-Saône department
Coordinates:	47 ° 24 '16 "  N , 6 ° 7' 13"  E Coordinates: 47 ° 24 '16 "  N , 6 ° 7' 13"  E
Serial number according to Janauschek	13
founding year	1119
Year of dissolution / annulment	1791
Year of repopulation	1817
Year of re-dissolution	1830
Mother monastery	Morimond Monastery
Primary Abbey	Morimond Monastery
Daughter monasteries	Lützel Monastery Rosières Monastery La Charité Monastery Montheron Monastery Daphni Monastery Laurus Monastery

The Bellevaux Monastery (Bella Vallis) is a former Cistercian abbey in the municipality of Cirey in the arrondissement Vesoul , Haute-Saône department , Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region , in France , around 28 km south of Vesoul, near Chambornay-lès-Bellevaux , near the River Ognon . The monastery is not to be confused with the Cistercian convent Bellevaux near Lausanne in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland .

history

The monastery was founded in 1119 as the first subsidiary of the Morimond primary abbey , on the initiative of Pontius from the family of the lords of La Roche-sur-l'Ognon , who were also important donors. Probably the first long-time abbot Pontius was a member of this family and perhaps even the son of the founder of the same name. Unlike other Cistercian monasteries, the new foundation was not settled in wasteland, but on old cultivated land in the vicinity of two villages. The monastery developed quickly and the large monastery church was able to be consecrated in 1143.

Abbey coat of arms

Bellevaux was the first and most important Cistercian abbey in Franche-Comté . It was the mother monastery of Kloster Lucelle , Monastery Rosières , monastery of La Charité (Franche-Comté) , Monastery Montheron in the Swiss canton of Vaud and the Cistercian Monastery of Daphni in Greece . With the latter, Otto de la Roche had established "his" family monastery in his new sphere of activity in the east, where Daphni and Bellevaux became the family burial place. The Bellevaux monastery owned several grangia and a hospice with a cellar on Rue Battant in Besançon . It also operated several mills on the Ognon and forges in Cirey. The Norman cider apple tree was introduced to the Free County by the Bellevaux monastery.

The second abbot of Bellevaux, Burchardus, was known for his literary skills; What has survived is a detailed treatise on beards, which was probably written in the early 1160s. Archbishop Petrus II. Von Tarentaise , who had the reputation of a miracle healer during his lifetime, died in Bellevaux in 1174 and was buried in the monastery church. A lively cult around his relics began before his canonization in 1191 and lasted until the fall of the monastery.

The monastery flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries. In 1289 King Rudolf von Habsburg sealed a document in Bellevaux. In the 14th century epidemics and wars led to the decimation of the monastic community and economic difficulties. A recovery followed under the rule of Charles V and Philip II. The wars between Spain and France brought the monastery to the brink of decline in the 17th century. In 1603 the abbey had only five monks, in 1650 the prior held out alone. The quiet late period began under French rule. The monastery was coming , d. H. the abbot was appointed by the king, usually resided elsewhere, and received significant payments from the monastery's income. In the later 18th century the community consisted of four to five monks, including prior, who were looked after by about a dozen employees. There were no more lay brothers, and the extensive, widely scattered estates were leased in exchange for money and in kind.

The revolution brought the monastery to an end in 1790; In 1791 the furniture and buildings were put up for auction. In 1795, General Jean-Charles Pichegru bought and lived in Bellevaux . In 1817 Dom Eugène Huvelin (1742–1828), a former monk from the Sept-Fons monastery, bought the complex with two conversations from the same monastery and founded a new Cistercian convent of strict observance, which in 1830 joined the Trappists . However, after the attack in the July Revolution of 1830 , the monks withdrew to Switzerland. Today this community lives in the Savoyard monastery of Tamié . The Trappists sold the monastery out of financial difficulties, later attempts to buy it back failed. In 1837 Bellevaux was acquired by the family of the Counts of Ganay and henceforth called "Castle". The last owner (and long-term resident) from this family was the renowned garden historian Ernest de Ganay (1880–1963). Since 1957, the buildings have been used for holiday colonies under an institution that has been renamed several times (1957 "Center fédéral des Coeurs Vaillants"; 1967 "Foyer culturel de Bellevaux"; 1978 "Center d'animation régional de Bellevaux"). Bellevaux has been privately owned again since 1994.

A scientific colloquium took place in May 2019 to mark the 900th year of its existence.

Buildings and plant

The monastery has the valley location, which is often preferred by the Cistercians. An existing stream was channeled to discharge the sewage, and a system of smaller above-ground channels for irrigation was branched off. The alignment of the buildings followed the topography of the valley; so the church was oriented not to the east but to the southeast.

Little is still visible of the medieval complex. The foundation walls and remains of the floor of the Romanesque monastery church are preserved just below today's surface, as a small-scale archaeological survey in 1986 showed. Their shape, however, has neither been reliably documented nor archaeologically researched. Late building documents (18th century) show three vaulted naves, three altars in the choir area and two chapels on the right side of the church. Visit logs from the late 16th and first half of the 17th centuries, however, name a number of at least six chapels attached to the right aisle. It can be assumed that the church was shortened during a renovation in the second half of the 17th century by demolishing part of the nave. From the dimensions of the cloister, which can still be seen today, a total length of the church of at least 60 meters can be assumed. In the picture above on the left, the following three medieval passages, originally from the chancel or the transept of the church, are visible (from front to back): access to the sacristy (medieval door frames, but not in situ), access to the stairs to the bedrooms of the Monks (probably medieval), access to the cloister (18th century). Fragments of the building sculpture (including keystones and vaulted ribs) and numerous medieval tombstones are scattered around. As the sounding showed, the cloister formed an exact square. As far as can be seen, medieval structures in the cloister area and towards the church were included in the new building of the 18th century. In front of its main entrance (north-east facade), a wall with door frames came to light during pipeline work in 2012, with a threshold level approx. 1.4 m below today's floor level.

All of the buildings that exist today (main or convent building, in the picture; wash house / wine cellar; farm buildings / stables; entrance gate) go back to extensive construction work under the last abbot Louis-Albert de Lezay-Marnésia (Abbot of Bellevaux 1731–1790). In 1741 a new abbey house was planned, but not built. Various construction and renovation work began around 1760. The farm building, formerly with stables, coach houses and fruit chutes, is dated 1762. In 1777 it was extended towards the gate; this area was changed again during the Trappist period (1817-1830) and included a chapel and guest rooms. An expansion and renovation around 1970 changed its character significantly. The monumental entrance gate is dated 1764. Remains of the surrounding wall have been preserved, especially in the wooded south-west of the site.

View of the convent building from the cloister side, postcard 1920s

The striking convent building dominating the valley (picture) was rebuilt in 1786–1788 at a significantly raised ground level. The architect in charge was Joseph Cuchot from Besançon; Stucco work, boiseries, locksmith and stone carvings were also partly carried out by artists from Besançon.

An elongated building, built into the hillside opposite the kitchen, dates from the same period with a large washbasin, the bakery (oven not preserved) and the ground-level wine cellar (today with modern windows).

Immediately after the auction in 1791, the church was demolished and its building materials were sold. In 1830 it was still referred to as a "dreary ruin". After the sale by the Trappists, the last remains of the abbey church and the buildings on the back of the cloister (the abbey since the 16th century at the latest) were demolished. This gave the facility its current appearance. In the main building, which is now angled, one wing of the cloister and one wing have been preserved in full. Today's main facade (see picture) is asymmetrical: In the 18th century, there was probably an additional window axis on the left of the transept of the church.

The complex water systems of the monastery, which were comprehensively restored in the second half of the 18th century, with a long underground sewer and a smaller fresh water canal have been largely preserved. Open water channels were used to irrigate the garden areas. For centuries, healing powers, especially for eye diseases, have been attributed to the water of a source within the former enclosure (the main drinking water supply of the monastery), which St. Peter of Tarentaise is said to have consecrated, which is still abundant today.

literature

• Anne-Marie Aubert: Histoire et développement économique d'une abbaye cistercienne; Bellevaux en Franche-Comté (XIIe-XVIe siècle). Paris 1926 (Thèse Ecole des Chartes).
• Patrick Braun: Bellevaux - A Trappist convent in exile in Freiburg and Valais (1830–1834). In: Freiburger Geschichtsblätter 64, 1985/1986, ISSN  0259-3955 , pp. 203-225 online .
• Benoît Chauvin: Bibliography cistercienne franc-comtoise. Documentation cistercienne, Rochefort 1973, pp. 33–37 u. Pp. 97-103 ( La documentation cistercienne. Vol. 9, ISSN  0378-424X ).
• Ernest de Ganay: Bellevaux, ancienne abbaye. In: Le Pays Comtois. 60, 1935, pp. 268-271.
• Angélique Henriot [Boillot]: Notre-Dame de Bellevaux: une abbaye cistercienne franc-comtoise. Mémoire de maîtrise de l'histoire du Moyen Age, Université de Franche-Comté. Besançon 2003. online
• René Locatelli: L'implantation cistercienne dans le comté de Bourgogne jusqu'au milieu du XIIe siècle . In: Actes des congrès de la Société des historiens médiévistes de l'enseignement supérieur public , 5e congrès, Saint-Etienne, 1974. pp. 59–112 online
• René Locatelli et al .: Bellevaux, de l'Abbaye au Chateau. Togirix et al. et al., Cromary et al. a. 1987, ISBN 2-86963-006-9 [can be consulted online at www.bellevaux.eu under “infos historiques”].
• René Locatelli: Sur les chemins de la perfection. Moines et chanoines dans le diocèse de Besançon vers 1060–1220. Publications de l'Université de Saint-Etienne, Saint-Etienne, 1992, ISBN 2-86272-024-0 ( Travaux et Recherches 2).
• Marcel Petitjean: L'Abbaye de Bellevaux, Haute-Saône. Archéologique probe. Août 1986. Association du center de Beaumotte, Rioz, 1986.
• Bernard Peugniez: Routier cistercien. Abbayes et sites. France, Belgique, Luxembourg, Suisse. Editions Gaud, Moisenay 2001, ISBN 2-84080-044-6 , p. 150.
• Michel Py: L'Abbaye de Bellevaux (Haute-Saône) et son réseau hydraulique. Center local d'histoire vivante, Rioz 1987.
• Denis de Sainte-Marthe (ed.): Gallia Christiana . In provincias ecclesiasticas distributa, in qua series et historia archiepiscoporum, episcoporum et abbatum Franciæ vicinarumque ditionum ab origine ecclesiarum ad nostra tempora deducitur, & probatur ex authenticis instrumentis ad calcem appositis. Volume 15: Jean-Barthélemy Hauréau : Provincia Vesuntionensi. Editio altera. Palmé, Paris 1860–1868, col. 239–247 [mostly abbot list]. on-line
• Jérôme Verniolle: Histoire des Trappistes du Val-Sainte-Marie, Diocèse de Besançon, avec des notices intéresantes sur les autres monastères de la Trappe en France. 4th edition revue avec soin. Waille, Paris 1843, v. a. P. 14ff. u. P. 49ff., [On the Trappist convent in Bellevaux 1817-1830], online .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gérald Barbet: Othon de La Roche. Chroniques sur l'étonnante histoire d'un chevalier Comtois devenu Seigneur d'Athènes, Besançon 2012, p. 61 ff.
2. ^ Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis LXII, Apologiae duae: Gozechini epistola ad Walcherum; Burchardi, ut videtur, Abbatis Bellevallis Apologia de Barbis. Edited by RBC Huygens, with an introduction on beards in the Middle Ages by Giles Constable. Turnholti 1985
3. ↑ An account book 1771–1788, Archives départementales de la Haute-Saône, H 60, gives an insight into late monastic life
4. ↑ http://www.zisterzienserlexikon.de/wiki/Huvelin,_Eugène
5. ↑ https://rmblf.be/2019/04/27/colloque-bellevaux-en-haute-saone-fondation-et-rayonnement-dune-abbaye-cistercienne/
6. ^ Archives départementales de la Haute-Saône, H 51
7. ↑ These sources were transcribed and evaluated by Angélique Boillot-Henriot; see bibliography with a link to the online version
8. ↑ The account book (Archives départementales de la Haute-Saône, H 60, fol. 248r ff, 263v ff, 281r ff) gives some names

Web links

Commons : Abbaye de Bellevaux  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website about Bellevaux Monastery (French)