Montmajour Abbey

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Montmajour is a former abbey in the French department Bouches-du-Rhône , a few kilometers northeast of Arles .

Watchtower ( Tour de l'Abbé or Tour Pons de l'Orme )
General view of the abbey
Chapel in the church
Cloister in the masons' monastery
18th century monastery building

history

Montmajour was built on a hill surrounded by swamp, which was built by King Conrad III. the peacemaking of Burgundy (937–993) had been designated as a public cemetery. The chapter of the Church of St. Trophime in Arles sold the land in 949 to a noblewoman who donated the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Pierre here . Construction of the first church began in 1016.

Due to the 1030 right to grant indulgences , the "Pardon de Montmajour", the small Abbey of Saint-Pierre became a much-visited place of pilgrimage, which used the income from the indulgence to drain the surrounding swamps. Thanks to a dense network of up to 54 priories, it quickly expanded its influence over Arles and the whole of Provence . In the 11th century it became the burial place of the Counts of Provence.

The new construction of the monastery, which began in 1703 under the direction of Pierre Mignard , could not be completed. First a fire in 1726 prevented the completion, then the collar affair of the Cardinal and Archbishop of Strasbourg Louis de Rohan , who was also Titualarabbot of Montmajour. King Louis XVI closed the abbey in 1786.

Multiple sales of the complex led to its decline, which could only be stopped after the painter Jean-Jacques Réattu (1760–1833) had acquired the watchtower. Demolition work was stopped in 1872 and restoration work began a little later.

investment

The abbey consists of

  • the hermitage (11th century) with the Chapelle Saint-Pierre
  • the medieval monastery (12th century) with the Church of Our Lady (1140/50), the chapel Sainte-Croix and the cloister, the capitals of the Musée de l'Arles antique were brought
  • the watchtower "Tour de l'Abbé" (1369) and
  • the new but never completed monastery from the 18th century.

Also worth seeing are the tombs of the Provencal counts

and the abbot Jean Hugolin de Saint-Rémy , † 1430, which were let into the walls of the church.

Others

From Montmajour further north, in the Montagnette between Tarascon and Avignon, the monastery of Saint-Michel-de-Frigolet was founded in the 10th century after monks from Montmajour had to leave the marshes around their mother monastery for health reasons and moved to the much more pleasant environment were.

In the film The Lion in the winter of 1968, the abbey used the “ Chinon Castle ” as the backdrop , as the real Chinon Castle was in a state of disrepair at that time. The abbey plays an important role in the detective novel “Dunkles Arles” by Cay Rademacher (Dumont Verlag Cologne 2018, pp. 190 ff).

In the interiors of the former abbey, photo exhibitions are held as part of the Rencontres d'Arles .

The building is named for the painting Sunset at Montmajour by Vincent van Gogh , which was "rediscovered" in Amsterdam in September 2013 , on which the ruins of the abbey are depicted in the background.

literature

Web links

Commons : Montmajour  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 43 ° 42 ′ 20 "  N , 4 ° 39 ′ 50"  E