St-Michel de Grandmont
The former priory of Saint-Michel de Grandmont was founded by the Order of the Grammontese at the end of the 12th century . It is located seven kilometers east of Lodève on a hill surrounded by forest and belongs to the municipality of Soumont in the Hérault department in the French region of Occitania . Saint-Michel de Grandmont is considered the best-preserved complex of the order and still has its church, the convent buildings and the cloister . In 1981, the priory was a protected monument in the list of Monuments historiques added.
history
Saint-Michel de Grandmont was founded in the last quarter of the 12th century as a priory of the Order of Grandmont. The place was, according to the rules of the order, in a forest, on unsuitable soil for agriculture, away from localities, but near a traffic axis. The patronage of St. Michael suggests that there was already a chapel dedicated to the Archangel on the site . As the dolmens on the site show, the area was populated early on. The order goes back to Stephan von Muret , who retired as a hermit around 1076 in Ambazac , near Limoges . Other hermits gathered around him who, after his death, settled in Grandmont, in the parish of Saint-Sylvestre, five kilometers from Ambazac. The founder of the order was canonized in 1189. In the Middle Ages , 150 priories of the order were created.
In the 13th century, Saint-Michel de Grandmont received rich donations from Guillaume de Cazoul, the bishop of Lodève. He was buried in the monastery church in 1259. In 1471 the priory became the coming and the monastery began to decline. In the 16th century only four Grammontensians lived there and in the 17th century the community no longer existed. In 1771 the order was under Louis XV. dissolved. During the French Revolution , the buildings were sold as a national property and converted into a winery in the mid-19th century . After another change of ownership, the monastery buildings were restored in 1957.
church
The priory church was built around 1200 and corresponds in its simplicity and severity to the regulations of the order, which are comparable to those of the Cistercians . The church has a single nave and is roofed with a pointed barrel without arches . The semicircular apse is broken up by three narrow, heavily sloping windows. Another window is above the west portal. The only wall decoration is a cornice that runs at the base of the barrel vault. The roof skylights , an octagonal lantern with a dome was added in the 13th or 14th century.
The small, rib-vaulted chapel on the north side of the church, dedicated to St. Michael was consecrated. It was outside the cloister area and had no connection with the church. The chapel was reserved for women who were not allowed in the church.
Cloister
The cloister dates from the 13th century. It is the order's only surviving cloister. Its four wings form almost a square. Three sides have a ribbed vault with keystones , the eastern gallery has a flat roof. Rectangular pillars alternate with double columns , the simple capitals of which are partially provided with geometric motifs or leaf decoration.
Monastery building
A round arched door flanked by arcades on both sides forms the entrance to the originally square chapter house . The ribs of the vault start just above the ground. In the 19th century the wall to the two-bay work room was torn down and the room was extended. A staircase leads from the cloister to the monks' dormitory, which is located above the chapter and work rooms and whose cross-headed windows were broken through in the 16th century. In the south wing of the first floor the refectory was housed in the east and the kitchen in the west. The floor above, which is divided into several rooms, has retained its original pointed barrel. The west wing, in which the guest dormitory was housed, is still vaulted with a pointed barrel.
literature
- Birgitt Legrand: The monastery complexes of the Grammontensians - studies of French religious architecture of the 12th and 13th centuries . Dissertation, University of Freiburg im Breisgau 2006 ( full text ).
- Jacques Lugand, Jean Nougaret, Robert Saint-Jean: Languedoc Roman . Édition Zodiaque, 2nd edition, La Pierre-qui-Vire 1985, ISBN 2-7369-0017-0 , pp. 47-48.
Web links
- Saint-Michel de Grandmont (French text)
- Ancien prieuré Saint-Michel de Grandmont in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
Coordinates: 43 ° 44 ′ 2.6 ″ N , 3 ° 22 ′ 9.5 ″ E