Abbey of Flaran

The Abbaye of Flaran is an old abbey cistercian, girl of the Abbaye of Escaladieu (Hautes-Pyrénées), located at Valence-on-Lowers, in the Département of Gers. It was founded in 1151, with the confluence of the Auloue and the Baïse, between Condom and Auch, by Burgundian monks who built in Gascogne this jewel of the compagnonic art and christic. It is one of the abbeys best preserved south-west of France.

History

Although founded at the 12th century, it was altered until the 18th century.

She knew a fast prosperity. It is in the middle of the 13th century that its abbot founded, with the count d' Armagnac, the country house of Valence-on-Lowers, at the top of a slope, on other bank of Baïse.
In spite of a life shared between prayer and manual work, according to the rule of saint Benoit, the abbey suffered from the vicissitudes of the history, to start with the disorders of the Guerre One hundred Year old, which ended only in 1481, when the county of Gascogne was attached to France.
Set fire to at the time of the wars of religion, the abbey was restored by its abbots commendataires, but was sold with the Révolution.

In 1913, the archaeological company of Gers managed to prevent that its Cloître does not finish with the Musée of Cloisters, with New York.

The site is repurchased by the Département of Gers in 1972 which then engages an intense restoration campaign. Sit from now on of the Departmental Conservation of the Inheritance, service of the General advice of Gers, this site develops many activities culturelles.
The Cistercian abbey shelters a permanent exposure on the ways of Compostelle set up by the Loubes abbot.

The architectural unit

the Romance church, whose Nave of three spans flanked of sides, is followed of a Transept and a Sanctuaire to semicircular Abside and absidioles; with the bedside of the church, a superb shell swells on a modillon.
the Cloister, Gothic of the 14th century, whose Romance gallery was preserved.

Its western gallery of the 14th century is composed of columns geminated with capitals with foliage and masks. The three other galleries, destroyed during the One hundred Year old war, go back to 1485. The stage of the western and northern galleries contains murals of the 18th century.

the Chapter house of the 14th century, with the nine intersecting ribs resting on four columns of Marbre is a jewel of the Art cistercian.
on the floor, the cellular dormitory of the monks and the abbey home (XVIIIe S.);
the Garden of the aromatic plants and medicinal, also known under the name of Garden of simple.

The Pilgrimage of Compostelle

Except way of the Via Podiensis of the Pilgrimage of Saint-Jacques-to-Compostelle .
One comes from Beaumont-on-the Ose, the next commune is Montreal-of-Gers the .

After Condom some pilgrims chose to join the Via Tolosane with Isle-of-Noah or with Montesquiou, traversing the valley of the Baïse, they discovered, to 8 km in the south, the abbey of Flaran.

External bonds

Official site of the departmental Arts center of the abbey of Flaran, on the site of the General advice of Gers
a page devoted to the abbey of Flaran on the site of the country house of Fourcès
Coordinated and album of photographs of the abbey of Flaran on the site “cister.com”, the Web of the abbeys and sites cistercians of Europe

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