Abbey Sainte-Marie de Fontfroide
the abbey of Fontfroide is an abbey Cistercienne located in the commune of Narbonne in the Département of the Aude in France. During the Albigensian Crusade, it was the spearhead of the catholic orthodoxy. In the middle of the 13th century, it receives important gifts out of grounds and in kind of Olivier de Termes which enables him to carry out new constructions. At the 14th century, one of its abbots, Jacques Baker, was elected pope under the name of Benoît XII.
Structure of the abbey
Main courtyard and the building of the convers.
After having crossed the porch of entry to the elegant lines, built towards 1777 - 1778, the host of right-hand side discovers the long rectangle of the main courtyard. A wall of large apparatus (Bordeaux on the right there that one saw it in is late) and, in terrace, the gardens with Italian the undoubtedly established here by Constance of Frégose at the time of the abbatiat commendataire of its two sons. On the left, a large building of medieval structure initially was occupied by the brothers convers then transformed and refitted, in particular by the opening of broad mullioned windows, in order to accommodate hotel trade. To the bottom, space is limited by a vast blind arcade to three bays of which that of the medium, closed by a wrought iron grid, is decorated of a traditional triangular pediment. This unit colors ocher, pink and incarnates of sandstone, the green of the foliages, the azure of the sky.A door gives access to the refectory of the convers. Imposing dimensions of this one, of which the length borders the fifty meters, bring to imagine a community from 180 to 200 brothers. This vessel built at the beginning of the 13th century is divided into five open spans of spread out ribbed vaults. The arcs beams of square profile, the warheads and the veins are based in the walls. Lighting is brought by bays geminated towards the west and in simple arc semicircular arch to the east. Installations of and 18th centuries bored the two central doors opening one on the main courtyard, the other on the court known as “Louis XIV”. Bulk-headings had divided the part into several spaces and one guesses thus in the second span of the crosses marking the vault from “abroad”.
The restoration of the abbey, since 1908 until our days, made it possible to find the splendid volume of the room and to add various decorative elements in re-employment, the such splendid wrought iron grids with the reason for vine branches and the large Renaissance chimney probably coming from the Château of the dukes of Montmorency to Pézenas, destroyed on order of Richelieu after the revolt of the last of them in 1632. Being able to receive to 700 listeners, this room with excellent acoustics is used as framework with concerts of and recital chamber music of artists.
Court of the XVIIIe century
This court is often called “Louis XIV”, wrongly, because the documents attest that its current configuration comes from the work carried out starting from 1775. In the medieval monastery, on a space definitely more restricted, in north the workshops brothers convers opened: joinery, the forging mill and bakery with the right of the mill spanning the torrent. In the east the wing of the noviciate developed while towards the south several properly conventual buildings overflowed largely in this court.All the unit was centered around the well, genuine cistern with the perfectly assembled hardcores and which deepens in a pit dug in fractured limestones. It is which is a very cold water, undoubtedly toponymic origin of the name Fontfroide (fons frigida) and because of the presence on this site of the first monacale installation. Any establishment of monastery requires triple proximity indeed: that of the stone, that of wood and that of water. All these elements are joined together in Fontfroide.
When the abbey, at traditional times, shelters neither convers any more, nor beginners but only one small group of monks, those destroy the buildings become useless and modify constructions by alénageant them according to the taste of the time. Then this court takes its regular aspect, rectangular, by the reduction of surfaces of the kitchen, the room of the monks (scriptorium) and especially of the refectory. The heightening of the ground, of almost 30 centimetres, corresponds to withdrawn spoil of these demolitions. As for the noviciate, it makes place with the home of the conventual prior with a Orangerie and, on the floor, residences roomy. The frontage however is only one stage set, plating on the structure of the 13th century.
The lane of the convers.
In the Abbey S normally directed cistercians, as it is the case of Fontfroide, the sanctuary being laid out towards the east, the contiguous cloister and the adjacent buildings occupy the oriental party of the monastery. The brothers Convers are thus installed in the Western part, turned towards outside. There opens the principal door by which these workmen can leave to gain the place of their work. It is starting from this entry that the interior distribution of the buildings is organized. This one must facilitate and at the same time regulate the communication between the two groups of monk. It is a question of establishing, while maintaining separation, of the contact points between the places of life. By it the brothers convers had access to the storeroom and the refectory, with the service-hatch of the kitchen, commune to the profès and the convers.
It is while walking on under this long vault in half-cradle that they went to the bottom of the church, without disturbing the office chant by the monks installed, them, in the opposite part of the nave. At the 17th century, convers having disappeared for a long time, their old dormitory, on the floor, summer arranged in roomy cells for hosts. A large staircase, which an arc in handle of basket supports, conduit at the entry.
The cloister.
Western gallery
In the lane of the convers a door of ironwork makes pass to the Cloître luminous. The light is diffused there by blind arcades and oculi. This interior court is the heart even of the abbey. It is by the western gallery skirting the building of the convers that one approaches this closed space enclosing a small garden.The gothic arch opening the first span discovers the prospect for the flowered solid masses which surround the well in front of the angle of the large arcades dominated by the bell-tower. Two periods of construction and two styles different are succédé here.
A first cloister, frame of the end of XIIe at the beginning of the 13th century, was high according to the rules of the Romanesque art. The whole of the low parts, in particular the double procession of the posts and their capitals with decoration of foliages supporting of the small arcs semicircular arch, belong at that time, but it is then a wood frame with its roof in lean-to building which covered the four galleries.
In second half of the 13th century, when Fontfroide, rich person of multiple donations, start the time of its greater prosperity, an important rehandling is carried out according to the taste and the new techniques, those of the Gothic age. In each span, the Romance posts, always places from there, from now on are surmounted by a high tympanum, bored oculi differently distributed and which fit itself in a deep gothic arch. The old wood cover is replaced by the stone and, inside the galleries, the ribbed vaults fall down along the walls on elegant bases, with two meters of the ground. It is still necessary to traverse the southern gallery to reach the gate giving access to the abbey church.
Southern gallery
It is next to collateral the abbey one and was built the very first one, as well during Romance construction as at the time of the ogival rehandling. The posts are grouped here, in each span, in five pairs: their marbles alternate the Rose de Caunes, the Griotte of the Pyrenees, the veined white of gray or green; their capitals offer the most varied vegetable reasons.With the top, the two central tympanums are aired by three oculi, instead of single the, present one everywhere else. But in fact the vaults conceal the most curious characteristics. The intersecting ribs is accompanied there by a toric longitudinal ivy and the very convex compartments are installed in concentric bed as with the vault of the square of the transept in the church.
Throughout the gallery exist benches where the monks came to sit down either to read individually, or to rest by contemplating what them memory and their heart had retained of the Liturgie or of the reading. In this same gallery, two stone basins were used for the rite of the “mandatum”, the rectal injection of the feet which Cisterciens practiced mutually each week. It was also indicated like that of the “collation”. The every day, at the end of work and before the evening meal, the abbot there read and commented on texts patristics. However, generally it used for that the collection known as of Collationes, where Saint Jean Cassien, at the 5th century, had gathered the principal passages of the most famous Fathers of the Church, in particular Saint Augustin and Saint Jerome. As in period of Advent and Lent, the monks broke the fast only once in the course of the day, to fallen the night between nuns and complies and precisely in this place, the term of collation passed from the reading to the catch of food itself, then finally with our modern and laic meaning of light meal.
Gallery is and chapter house
The wall of the gallery is, immediately contiguous with the door of the church and lets guess, behind a Burgundian statue of the Vierge to the Child and the basket of pinks, the sealed site of armarium. In this obviously spared under the staircase of the transept were preserved the books necessary to the offices, the texts of Old and New Testament, works of the Fathers of the Church.The door which opens at once after introduced with the Sacristie, beautiful piece arched in cradle. Five spans rythment the gallery Is and the central span appears towards the entirely hollow garden, without blind arcade of posts above the bench and without tympanum, opening symmetrical of that which, facing him, constitutes the entry of the chapter house.
The threshold being used as transition enters the Cloître and the room itself Marie sobriety and the majesty, the power and lightness. The central arcade in semicircular arch is based on two groups of four marble columns surrounding a fifth. The room probably was built between 1180 and 1280. Against the three blank walls, arcs and veins rest on the very simple capitals of imbedded columns. In the center, warheads and beams are supported by four marble columns. Their widened capitals are decorated of two rows of sheets punts, representations stylistics of the “citel”, the reed of water of the ponds of Burgundy which gave its name to Cîteaux.
From here, through the columns of the chapter and the gallery, repeated beyond by those of the other spans of the cloister, is discovered one surprising perspective: marble barrels and stone arcs multiplied impose the image of a forest on deep meditation. Two stone benches superimposed run along the walls. In the East, three windows light the room Beyond the chapter house, a passage led to the second cemetery, that of the community of the 19th century. At the origin, it was useful for the arrangement of the tools which the monks took before joining the gardens or the workshops. At the end of the gallery Is, finally, a staircase gives on the floor.
The abbey church
The nave
The construction of the Nef was undertaken as of the affiliation with Cîteaux in 1145 or, at the latest, after the final donation by the viscountess Ermengarde de Narbonne in 1157. Contrary to the uses, one began work with the Nef. Rythmées by five spans, the nave raises up to twenty meters its barrel vault broken which support of rectangular solid masses beams. These arcs take support on geminated columns, engaged in large square pillars and stopping on consoles in quarter of round, with two meters of the ground. Stalls are laid out on both sides of the nave to constitute the chorus monks.This nave is counterthrust by two collateral whose vault in half-cradle goes up to fourteen meters. They communicate with the nave by large arcades, with rollers supported by columns imbedded in the pillars and resting on the pedestal ones, with the same height as the consoles of the nave. In the collateral south five vaults open which date doubtless from the 15th century.
Stained glasses
In this church cistercian, the stained glasses can surprise. Time of the monks, according to a rigorous rule, the windows are only furnished with glasses “in greyness”. When Gustave Fayet acquires Fontfroide the canopies disappeared. They then adopt the party taken of the color with his/her friend Rene Billa, musician and painter, they install in the Beaver the “glassmaking of fine sands”. The whole of the stained glasses of the church leaves this glassmaking in 1913. In this vast unit, an originality appears: the five stained glasses of collateral north presents the life of saint François d' Assise.
The transept and chorus
Perhaps raised after the nave, at the end of the 12th century, the Transept was altered one century later or even at the beginning of the 14th century. To the bottom of the Transept crossing northern, a staircase directly connects the church to the dormitory of the monks. In each pilot wheel two vaults, all four directed in the East open. Closest to the sanctuary have the rectangular shape with flat bedside, the others deeper, end in small a Abside with five sides.
With the central crossing of the transept, the keystone is replaced by a circular opening, a oculus. The building of the church had to be completed by the sanctuary, comprising chorus and apse. Slightly elevated with two steps, first is covered with a ribbed vault. Side of the Gospel, one sees the vestiges, very mutilated, of tombs which one can think that they were those of the Viscounts of Narbonne.
Dormitories
- the dormitory of the monks:
-
the dormitory of the brothers convers:
The visiting room, old refectory of the monks
In the beginning, this room extended on 24 meters perpendicular to the northern gallery from the cloister, opening on a wash-hand basin destroys in 1776. It could accommodate forty monks. Shortened half, raised lit by large windows, the refectory became a dining room at the 18th century.
The office
It is decorated with Spanish. A remarkable ceramics fresco evokes the popular daily life of the 18th century. The kitchen was arranged at the end of the 18th century, with its baker's oven, in old the Scriptorium of the monks, remained with identical of what it was in 1910.
The dining room
This beautiful piece parallel with the cloister was used for the monks to chauffoir. Since 1910, it is the dining room of summer.
The Romance door and the storeroom
The door was used as main entrance with the monastery. An arc, empty of any ornament, draws a semicircular arch. The archstones, finely cut, open out their range in long trapezoidal lines. An imposing lintel made up of a single block, supports the tympanum.
The storeroom is a low, arched room and vast proportions in these thick walls. However, between one of dceux-Ci, in the East, and the wall close limiting the lane to the Convers remain the traces of a staircase which ensured the direct communication of this storeroom with the dormitory located above.
The vault from abroad
Outside the fence and only construction which remains of the first monastery, it allowed the pilgrims and the abroads to attend the offices without disturbing the monks. The 14th century, buttresses make it possible to raise the building and to build a room, perhaps used like vault by the abbots.
The rosery
Fontfroide has offered for a few years a news Roseraie. On this site, in the south of the abbey, during long centuries the double enclosure of a Cimetière remained. In the oriental party being next to the transept of the church, the monks, monks and convers were buried. Since the 12th century, more than two thousand burials superimposed themselves.
Formerly separated by a wall, a second enclosure towards the West received the skins of laic, generally of rich person benefactors. This cemetery was unused as of 1668 - 1669 and refitted at the 18th century. At the 19th century, the cistercians had installed their cemetery with the bedside of the church.
The ground of the necropolis, in waste land, accepted the rosery at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1986, a case of arson devastated it and it was replanted in 1989. In all, these are 2.500 rose trees which embellish Fontfroide and have eleven different colors. A little higher, the enclosure Saint-Hackney carriage constitutes a garden of scents where all kinds of English old pinks are joined together associated with odorous plants of the Garrigue.
See too
Internal bonds
External bonds
- Fontfroide
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