Abbey Notre-Dame d\' Évron

The abbey Notre-Dame d' Évron is a founded Abbaye bénédictine with Évron.

Description

The tower of the abbey church of Évron rebuilt by the Viscounts of Maine is too imposing, too powerful, in its primitive construction, such as it was before the opening of large bays practiced for the installation of the monumental staircase of the 18th century, to have had of another destination only that of a bell-tower of church, or a belfry. One must see a fortification at the same time there. The abbey is not absolutely in the alignment of the fortresses of the Viscounts of Maine, but it is in their proven field; and the keep reinforces those of Holy-Suzanne, Courtaliéru and Thorigné. Those which occupied it in the name of the monks or of their restorer could usefully contribute to bar the passage to the invaders of the Maine. If one could study the way in which it is connected to the nave of the Romance church, one would probably find that he was added afterwards to construction. This defensive destination of the monument was allowed by architects and archeologists.

Restoration (985-989)

The Abbé Angot established that Raoul III of Beaumont was in 985 - 989 the restorer of the abbey of Évron. One wanted to charm to him this honor with the profit of the Viscount of Blois, but, though the attempt succeeded, the fact is against any probability and denial by many monuments.

See also: Raoul III of Beaumont

The restorer of the abbey of Évron is named in two charters: one, of Cartulaire of the Holy Father of Chartres, which one can go back to 98 5; the other, which carries the date of 989, extracted the chartrier of Évron, but that we know only by copies of the 17th century. In the actual position of these parts, this character is named Robert, or Robert of Blois, or Robert, Viscount of Blois. The Angot abbot proves that is false, that the charters were falsified, one before 1073, the other at the 13th century.

The Comté of Maine was perfectly made up at the end of the 10th century. It had nothing to do with the counts de Blois, who could nothing assert there, and who in fact never claimed there, if one excludes the alleged restoration of Évron, for which, under their authority, their vassal or Viscount would have conceded many fields with the center even country manceau.

The suspicion of trickery came to the Angot abbot by studying the genealogical documents from the family from the Viscounts from Maine, named later Viscounts of Beaumont, where it appears that all the territory of Sablé, the Holy-Suzanne Charnie, , Évron, the edge Top and Low-Maine, the Forêt of Pail, i.e. all the country where the possessions of the abbey are, belonged as of the end of the 10th century to the Viscounts of Maine. The restoration of the abbey could thus come only from them only.

For Évron, we have even a document more express than the others in a concession of fair and markets in 994. Will it be said that the rights of the counts and Viscounts of Blois can have existed without one knowing the cause of it? But if the documents which one calls upon are obviously falsified, one must refuse any credit to them.

The Angot abbot presses his thesis on 4 texts:

the criticism of the charter of 989, full with improbabilities and cruel forms;
the proof of the falsification of the charter of Cartulaire of the Holy Father of Chartres;
conclusions to draw from a diploma of the count of Maine of the year 994;
the note on the appendices of the charter of 989.

Restoration by the Viscounts of Blois?

Thus let us see the documents:

What precedes proves the falseness of the two charters concerning the origin of Évron, and in particular the fraudulent attribution of the restoration of the abbey with Robert, Viscount of Blois; but does not show to which must return the merit from there.

The first two documents concerning the restoration of Évron false, or were at least falsified; the principal reason for this operation was to allot to a Viscount of Blois the rights of restorer which belonged to a Viscount of Maine. This last point should now be proven directly.

There however exists already a rather precise indication in this fact that the goods returned or given to the abbey of Saint Hadouin belonged to the fields of the Viscount of Maine.

The Abbé Angot exposed it previously, and he affirms again that which was lord of the Charnie, of Évron, was to be the second founder of the monastery which made the glory of this region.

Restoration by the Viscounts of Maine

The forgers had to dispossess it only to replace the name of the Viscount of Maine by that of Robert, and, to restore the truth, the Angot abbot has only to draw aside the intruder and to point out the true benefactor.

Forgery and historical trickery

How and why the forgeries were made?

One in the charter of 985 had substituted the name of Robert, who is designated there only like faithful of the count Eude of Blois and not as Viscount, in Raoul, Viscount of Mans. This error or this defraud was the cause of all posterior falsifications.

The charter of 985 was falsified before 1073

in the interest of Robert of Blois or its family, with the damage of Raoul III, Viscount of Maine, for a share;
to support the Abbey of the Holy Father of Chartres in claims of superiority on the abbey of Notre-Dame d' Évron, because one does not see of it an application.

The false signatures are a proof of these trickeries, which gave the means of making those of the second charter of 989.

The Viscounts of Blois, descendants of Robert, do not seem to have left posterity after the 11th century. The purpose of falsification is to support another family of Viscounts of Blois, known at the 12th century and 13th centuries, without relationship perhaps with the first, but wanting nevertheless to be attached to it.

See also: List of the Viscounts of Blois

This is why one affirms in this new text that Robert, Viscount of Blois and even wire of the count Eude, are well the restorer of Évron; and the family of Lisle which believes or says her heiress, represented by Renaud de Lisle, obtains in the abbey church the place of honor for him, in 1277, and of large tombs effigiées for his/her father and his mother, her grand' father and its grand' mother.

The Angot abbot evokes two assumptions:

one can suppose that the rehandlings of the charter of 989 had had as a reason to lead Renaud de Lisle to be generous while persuading to him, sincerely or not, that he was heir to Robert, to him also Viscount of Blois, mentioned in the charter of the abbey of the Holy Father towards 985.
Or even this same Renaud II, Viscount of Blois, informed by this document which another Viscount had of the rights of restoration of the abbey, and taking it wrongly or rightly for one of its ancestors, will have claimed itself of the monks the recognition of his title, with all the rights which it comprised, and a burial honourable for his/her parents and aïeux in the chorus of the church that one prepared oneself to rebuild.

The Angot abbot believes rather than the invention came from the monks, because the charter was not only altered to equip with the title of restorer the ancestor of Renaud de Lisle, but still to give a new form to the emuneration of the fields of the abbey. Did it obtain it free of the monks, or by the liberal alms intended for the rebuilding of the monumental church? One and the other opinion is acceptable

This work of fraudulent corrections, which one will realize by reading the annotations of the charter of 989, must date from the 13th century. It took at least two hundred years so that the readers were unaware of the genealogy of characters as known as the counts of Blois and even that of kings de France.

It is not either but at one late time that could be created strange words as those which one decorates with terminations in iacus against all the rules and any reason, and which one publishes so many of other Latinized shapes of French not included/understood, or left even entirely French

Only one point presents some difficulties: how did the Viscounts of Maine or Beaumont, as they then were called, let themselves strip of their privilege of founder or restorer of an abbey which was in their fields? It is that actually they were not it.

For the monks, the founder was Saint Thuribe, successor of Saint Julien, or more historically Saint Hadouin, at the 7th century. The restorer was only one benefactor which one usurped the title only at the 13th century. At that time, the Viscounts of Beaumont had anything to claim, not having never had anything.

Consequences

From consequence consequently, at some two hundred years from there, one came from there, though Renaud II of Lisle had his personal weapons on his tomb, to take for the abbey the weapons of the Famille of Blois, only by this reason which it was a question in the charter of altered restoration of Évron, of the count Eudes of Blois and its supposed son, and which at the 15th century its indirect representatives carried the three stakes and the chief that one knows, without more dealing with the Viscount and of his blazon to the full cross.

The heraldic monuments of this invention still decorate the stained glasses with the 15th century of the church and the monumental frontage of the abbey of the 18th century, without damage of many menus objects, lectern, Pascal candlestick and others. It is necessary to return to the Viscounts of Maine what belongs to them. The abbey of Évron was rebuilt, equipped again by one with them; the keep of the church is their Holy-Suzanne work like those of , of Thorigné, Courtaliéru.

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