St-Léonard-des-Chaumes monastery

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Cistercian Abbey of St-Léonard-des-Chaumes
location FranceFrance France,
Nouvelle-Aquitaine region,
Charente-Maritime department
Coordinates: 46 ° 10 '12.1 "  N , 1 ° 4' 27.4"  W Coordinates: 46 ° 10 '12.1 "  N , 1 ° 4' 27.4"  W.
Serial number
according to Janauschek 		400
founding year 1036? by Benedictines ?
Cistercian since 1168
Year of dissolution /
annulment 		1791
Mother monastery Bœuil Monastery
Primary Abbey Pontigny monastery

Daughter monasteries

no

Saint-Léonard-des-Chaumes ( lat . Sanctus Leonardus de Calmis , from afr . Chaume , lat. Calma , "heath", "fallow land") was a Cistercian abbey around seven kilometers east of La Rochelle in what is now the Dompierre municipality. sur-Mer in the Charente-Maritime department , Nouvelle-Aquitaine region , France .

history

founding

No documents have been received about the foundation of the monastery. After Jean Besly (1572–1644) it was founded in 1036 by Odo of Aquitaine . According to another tradition, which is ruled out for chronological reasons, Otto von Braunschweig , Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine since 1196 , is said to have been the founder. According to a third tradition, which goes back to a declaration by the monks in 1497, the Lords of Dompierre are said to have been the founders and patrons of the monastery.

In any case, in 1168 the monastery joined the Cistercian Order by subordinating itself to the Bœuil monastery. Monastery Bœuil itself belonged to the filiation of the Primary Abbey of Pontigny through its mother monastery Dalon .

Drainage of the Marais

The monasteries, which were located on the islands or, like St-Léonard, on the edge of the wetlands and marshland (French: Marais) of the Sèvre basin, played a leading role in the Middle Ages, in some cases since the 11th century the drainage and utilization of these areas through drainage and dyke systems. After Geoffroi Ostorius, Lord of Marans , left the Marais des Alouettes to the three monasteries of La Grâce-Dieu , La Grâce-Notre Dame de Charron and St Léonard for drainage and use in 1192 , St-Léonard also took part in it to protect against flooding In this area, a kind of dike, later (occupied since 1273) so-called Bot de l'Alouette , to be built. In association with the Templars of Bernay (Île de Marans), St Léonard also participated in the drainage of the Marais de la Brune by building the Bot de l'Angle (documented 1246), which was connected to a canal and which was still connected to the Bot de Brie was merged. In 1270, St Léonard made an alliance with the Benedictines of Saint-Michel-en-l'Herm and of Maillezais and the Templars of La Rochelle to carry out further measures, including a canal from the bridge of La Brune to one later called Vielles Brunes Place called Port des Pècheurs.

Early modern age

During the Huguenot Wars , the monastery buildings were almost completely destroyed in 1568, with the exception of parts of the refectory , which were converted into a chapel.

The abbey was also converted into a commander of the French crown. The abbot of such a commander was appointed by the king and confirmed by the pope, and the income was divided into thirds according to the entitlement to equal, in reality often unequal parts in such a way that one part was due to the abbot as the holder of the commander, a second part to the Monastic community under the leadership of a prior and a third part for general expenses.

The first known recipient of the Coming St Léonard was, as was often the case in the diocese of Saintes, a Protestant: Gabriel de Lamet, Seigneur de Coudon et de Cheusse, lay judge of La Rochelle, was appointed on February 22, 1583 with a royal brevet kept the coming until 1609, followed by Paul Hurault de l'Hôpital, Archbishop of Aix (1599-1624), who in turn left them in 1610 to Vincent de Paul . In the contract concluded on May 14, 1610 with his predecessor, Vincent had to undertake to pay him an annual pension of 1,200 livres in compensation, which corresponded to a third of the total income. On May 17th, Hurault signed his resignation, on June 10th followed by the appointment by the Dauphin and in September confirmation by Paul V. During the official occupation on October 16th, he found a desolate situation and the monastery complex in ruins legal conflicts that subsequently preoccupied him with litigation. Although he held the title of Abbé commendataire , he lived in Paris and took on other tasks as pastor of Clichy and educator in the house of the Gondi. On October 29, 1616 he signed the waiver of his coming.

Around 1650 the monastery joined the Reformed branch of the order, which first appointed Denis de Chastillon and then Claude Petit as the first abbots from the circle of Charles Bourgeois . At that time, however, the monastery only had three monks. Work on the structural restoration is documented in 1663, and when Jacques Boyer visited the monastery shortly before 1714, he found a “pleasant monastery district” and a “neat church”.

The economic situation is particularly well documented for the 1720s. At that time the monastery consisted of "chapel, buildings, walls, courtyard, garden and suburb ( préclauture )", as well as an adjacent pasture and a piece of fallow land, a total of around five hooves of usable area available to the community. In 1723, the income from taxes, leases and other legal titles, excluding payments in kind, resulted in a total income of around 1,860 livres, which were offset by obligations of 1,913 livres. The total yield must have been higher, however, because a complaint by the monks from 1726 shows that 2,863 L. were to be distributed at that time: according to a division established in 1663, the abbot was entitled to 1,175 L., the monks 631 L. , while 1,057 L. were to be used by the abbot for general expenses, of which he, however, left 300 L. to the monks for the payment of such expenses, used 206 L. for taxes and kept the remainder of 551 L. for himself.

In the French Revolution in 1791 the monastery was destroyed again and this time completely, the community was dissolved and the last abbot was forced to take an oath of allegiance to the revolution.

Buildings and plant

Nothing has survived from the buildings of the monastery, even detailed descriptions or contemporary illustrations do not seem to have become known. In the area of ​​the former monastery, the hamlet L'Abbaye is located today as a district of Dompierre, whose name still reminds of the former abbey.

Well-known people from the history of the monastery

  • Gausbert de Poicibot , Trobador (around 1210-1230), was initially a monk of St Léonard in his youth and then left the monastery for a woman's sake (“per voluntat de femna”) to work as Joglar at the court of Savaric de Mauléon to seek one's happiness.
  • Vincent de Paul , Commendatarian Abbot 1610–1616

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jean Besly: Histoire des comtes de Poictu et Dukes of Guyenne , Paris / Niort 1840, S. 140f.
  2. ^ Leopold Janauschek: Originum Cisterciensium Tomus I , Vienna 1877, p. 156f., No. CCCC
  3. ↑ Louis-Étienne Arcère : Histoire de la ville de La Rochelle et du pays d'Aulnis , Volume II, La Rochelle 1757, pp. 656f., Document XVI
  4. ↑ Cécile Treffort (ed.): Mémoires d'hommes: traditions funéraires et monuments commémoratifs en Poitou-Charentes, de la préhistoire à nos jours , ARCADD, La Rochelle 1997, p. 115 Note 10 describes the founder as Guillaume de Dompierre and states 1168 as the founding date. The document from 1497 gives no name and no date of foundation.
  5. ^ Bernard Peugniez: Routier cistercien , Editions Gaud, Moisenay 2001, p. 393, ISBN 2-84080-044-6 . The indication of the Certosa di Firenze website that the mother monastery Buillon , herself a daughter of the monastery Balerne from the filiation of Clairvaux , had not affected [1] , is probably based on a misunderstanding of the Latin name Bulium .
  6. ↑ Étienne Clouzot, Les marais de la Sèvre Niortaise et du Lay du X e à la fin du XVI e siècle , in: Bulletin et mémoires de la société des antiquaires de l'Ovest, Series II, Volume 27 (1903), p. 1-282
  7. ↑ Clouzot, Les marais (1903), pp. 30f.
  8. ↑ Clouzot, Les marais (1903), p. 39ff.
  9. ↑ Clouzot, Les marais (1903), p. 41f., Reprint of the document by Daniel Massiou, Histoire politique civile et religieuse de la Saintonge et de l'Aunis, depuis les premiers temps historiques jusqu'à nos jours , 2nd ed. , Volume II, Saintes 1846, pp. 461f., Document XIV
  10. ^ Jacques-Paul Migne: Troisième et dernière Encyclopédie théologique , Volume XVI, Paris 1856, Sp. 445f.
  11. ↑ Bernard Pujo: Vincent de Paul: le précurseur , Michel, Paris 1998, p. 322, note 26 assumes the same thirds for 1610.
  12. ↑ Louis Audiat a. a., Le diocèse de Saintes au XVIII e siècle , Paris / Saintes 1894 (= Archives historiques de la Saintonge et de l'Aunis, 23), p. 181, note 1
  13. ↑ Pujo, Vincent de Paul (1998), pp. 60f., On this p. 321, note 14
  14. ↑ Audiat u. a., Le diocèse de Saintes (1894), p. 180ff., No. XXIX-A
  15. ↑ Audiat u. a., Le diocèse de Saintes (1894), p. 185, no.XXIX-D
  16. ↑ Pujo, Vincent de Paul (1998), p. 62
  17. ↑ Pujo, Vincent de Paul (1998), p. 62ff.
  18. ^ Pujo, Vincent de Paul (1998), p. 78
  19. ^ Louis Julius Lekai: The rise of the Cistercian strict observance in seventeenth century France , Catholic University of America Press, 1968, p. 203
  20. ↑ According to Louis Pérouas, Le diocèse de La Rochelle de 1648 à 1724: sociologie et pastorale , SEVPEN, Paris 1964 (= Bibliothèque générale de l'École Pratique des Hautes Études, 6), p. 190, is the number of three monks for June 25, 1652, Lekai, The rise of the Cistercian strict observance (1968), p. 203 gives the same number for the year 1660.
  21. ↑ Jacques Boyer, Journal de voyage (1710-1714) , in: Mémoires de l'Académie des sciences, belles lettres et arts de Clermont-Ferrand 26 (1884), pp. 65ff., Here p. 426f .: «L ' eglise est proprette et l'enclos fort agréable. Il ya quantité de titres, dont j'ai fait la liste des abbés; mais il n'y a rien de curieux. "
  22. ↑ Audiat u. a., Le diocèse de Saintes (1894), Document XXX-B, pp. 187f.
  23. ↑ Audiat u. a., Le diocèse de Saintes (1894), Document XXX-B, pp. 188-193; Document XXX-C, pp. 193f.
  24. ↑ Audiat u. a., Le diocèse de Saintes (1894), document XXX-A, p. 186ff.
  25. ↑ Based on the description by L. Augier, Les restes de l'abbaye de saint-Léonard-des-Chaumes , in: Recueil de la Commission des arts et monuments historiques de la Charente-Inférieure et Société d'archéologie de Saintes , Series III , Volume I, Saintes 1886, pp. 342f. Already at that time there was hardly a trace to be found, only the former well of the monastery is said to have been in use.
  26. ↑ Jean Boutière / Alexander Herman Schutz, Biographies des troubadours: textes provençaux des XIIIe et XIVe siècles , Franklin, New York 1972, pp. 128-130, No. XL; the location “Saint Lunart” was also wanted to refer to Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat , but due to the relationship with Savaric de Mauléon, who was one of the patrons of St Léonard-des-Chaumes, research today mostly goes from the latter Place off.

literature

  • Jean-Claude Bonnin: Les abbayes cisterciennes du pays d'Aunis: notice historique sur les abbayes de la Grâce-Dieu de Benon, Notre-Dame de Ré, Saint-Léonard-des-Chaumes et Notre-Dame de Charron . Self-published, La Rochelle 1979 (= Études monastiques, templières et hospitalières du pays d'Aunis et provinces voisines, 1) [This work has not yet been used for the article]

Web links