France: Clairvaux celebrates 900 years of history

In 1098, Robert de Molesmes founded the abbey of Cîteaux, a new monastery whose intention was to follow the Rule of St. Benedict "with greater rigor and perfection" and to "live in intimacy with God with greater profit and peace"[1]. His successor, Etienne Harding founded a new monastery on May 18, 1113, in La Ferté, and the year after another in Pontigny. In 1115, he entrusted young Bernard, son of the Lord of Fontaine, near Dijon, with the foundation of a third "daughter" of the growing order.

24-year-old Bernard was accompanied by "Gaudry de Touillon, his uncle, and four of his brothers: Guy, Gérard, André and Barthélémy, as well as his cousins Geoffroy de la Roche-Vanneau and Robert de Châtillon and four other monks: Geoffroy d'Aignay, Elband, Renier and Gaucher, who was to be the prior."[2]

After traveling about 120 kilometers, St. Bernard and his companions settled not far from Bar-sur-Aube, in the south of Champagne, in a wild and wooded valley, where they planted the cross on June 25, 1115. The abbey of Clairvaux was born.

From then on, the Cistercian reform expanded prodigiously. At St. Bernard's death, less than 40 years later, on August 20, 1153, Clairvaux had become a capital of the medieval West, founding 67 abbeys with 98 daughter houses. A century later, in 1250, the abbey of Clairvaux had 339 daughter abbeys altogether.[3]

In the late Middle Ages, Clairvaux went through a period of decline, due to the Hundred Years' War, the Great Schism in the Church (1378-1417) and the plague. The Wars of Religion and the Thirty Years' War brought their share of miseries to the 16th and 17th centuries.

On the eve of the French Revolution, about forty monks were still living there. Expelled by the new regime, they were forced to abandon the abbey that was sold as national property in 1792. The church was transformed into a stone quarry and the buildings served industrial and commercial purposes (paper and glass). In 1808, the Napoleonic State bought the whole property and turned it into what would be France's largest prison for many years to come.

Some of the transformations made to the abbey to turn it into a prison were definitive and irreparable. The medieval church was entirely destroyed between 1809 and 1812. The old monastery was demolished to make room for the guards' lodgings. The hostelry served as a poorhouse, while the other buildings housed the actual prison: cells, workshops and detention cells in the great cloister; a prison for women was installed in the lay quarters in 1820. Today, the central house inaugurated in 1971 is built on the foundations of the medieval church.

But this modern detention center did make it possible to liberate the great cloister and the magnificent lay quarters, as well as the parts built in the 18th century. Patiently fixed up and restored, the buildings are now open to the public for visits and cultural manifestations.

2015 marks the 900th anniversary of the abbey of Clairvaux's foundation. The monks' refectory has been entirely restored and has been open to the public since June. Built in 1774 by the architect Aubert, it was transformed into a chapel for the prisoners in 1813. A large exposition has been set up at the Hôtel-Dieu-le-Comte in Troyes, where the abbey's archives and library are kept. Under the title "Clairvaux, the Cistercian Adventure", it presents unique works, in particular several precious manuscripts.

The exposition retraces the period of the abbey's origins - the creation of the Cistercian Order, the foundation of Clairvaux and the figure of St. Bernard - then the growth that followed its founder's death until the Hundred Years' War, and lastly the years of crisis and reform up until the sale of the abbey by the Republican State.

The exposition reassembles over 150 elements of the archives that were dispersed all over Europe during the Revolution. Manuscripts from the 12th and 13th centuries are also presented, including the famous Bible of Etienne Harding, that had to be withdrawn in August because of its fragility along with 35 other pieces, all of which were replaced by other unprecedented articles.

Among the works exposed, the public can also admire many illuminated manuscripts, handwritten acts - one of which has St. Bernard's seal - and treasures of goldsmithery, such as a cross-shaped reliquary of the True Cross (around 1215) and the gold-plated silver crosier of Robert de Molesme.

Exposition Clairvaux. The Cistercian Adventure
June 5 to November 15, 2015, at the Hôtel-Dieu-le-Comte (Troyes). Tuesday to Sunday, 9:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Free entry.

(sources: Aubé/Figrao-Histoire/clairvaux-2015/archives-aube.fr – DICI no.324 dated November 6, 2015)

[1] Hugues de DIE, Archbishop of Lyon and pontifical legate, letter from December 1097.
[2] Pierre AUBÉ, Saint Bernard de Clairvaux, Fayard, 2003, p. 86.
[3] Marie-Laure CASTELNAU, "Les cinq vies de Clairvaux" in Le Figaro Histoire, #22, October-November 2015, p. 128.

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