Abbey of Montebourg

Montebourg appears in the medieval sources in 1042 in an act of William the Conqueror for the Saint-Vigor abbey of Cerisy, in which this one concedes rights in the forest of Montebourg. But, at that time, there is not yet mention of a community of inhabitants nor of a parish.

Foundation

Caption

A legend, setting written in XVe century, tells the foundation of the abbey of Montebourg: started from Savoy, two hermits stop one evening on a beach Norman. One of both decides to sleep in a boat failed on the shore; the second, Roger, prefer to sleep on the beach. But the tide carries the boat and its occupant which arrives, after a random navigation, on the English coasts, where he is elected bishop by the amazed population by this miracle.

In Normandy, Roger, in the morning, leaves to research his missing companion. Tired, it stops one evening with the foot of a hill, in Montebourg. He falls asleep and dreams that a star falls at the top from the hill, while the Vierge intimates the order to him to build an oratorical there in its honor. Roger is carried out.

The miracle arrives at the ears of the duke Guillaume, who returned from England by the port of Barfleur, at the north of Montebourg. This one then yields various grounds, materials and rights to him in the forests of Cotentin so that Roger raises a monastery in the honor of the Virgin.

What one knows of the foundation

The monastery seems to be rested by the duke William the Conqueror, between 1066 (date of the Conquête of England) and 1087 (date of died of the Conquérant). No more precise date can be marked, in the absence of a charter of foundation remaining still today. The only information on the creation of the house bénédictine of Montebourg is given to us by two briefs of the dukes William the Conqueror and Robert Courteheuse, by acts of XIIe century, which speak about “Willelmus rex which Angliam conquisivit” (“king Guillaume which conquered England”) and by chroniclers of XIIe century (Robert de Torigni, Ordéric Vital, Guillaume de Jumièges). A charter, allotted sometimes to William the Conqueror, sometimes to its son William Rufus, was published in the XVIIe century in the Neustria Pia of the Father Arthur Of Monstier, and in the Gallia Christiana (volume XI). However, this charter is a forgery, assembly of extracts of the acts of confirmation of XIIe century, and whose only known copies date from XVe century. One of these copies is contained besides in Martyrologe of Montebourg of 1448. Therefore, the conditions of the foundation of the abbey of Montebourg are still not very clear.

One knows nevertheless some sure elements concerning the inheritance of the abbey at his beginnings thanks to the Cartulaire of the abbey of Montebourg, now preserved at the department of the Manuscripts of the National library of France. It is in a ducal field that it was built. William the Conqueror even gave to the new monastery the site, on a hill, near to a right, river of wood-cutting and all materials necessary to the construction of the buildings, to take in the forests of Montebourg and Brix, not far from there.

Development in XIIe century

After the death of the Conqueror, on September 9th, 1087, its three sons, William Rufus, Robert Courteheuse and Henri Beauclerc fought for the succession on the thrones ducal of Normandy and royal of England. This disturbed period saw being confirmed the alliance of Henri Beauclerc with a certain number of lords of the Cotentin, in particular Richard de Reviers, lord of Néhou and Vernon. To an unknown date between 1100 and 1107, Henri gives the patronage of the abbey to this Richard de Reviers as a thanks for his fidelity.

The family of Richard de Reviers was then not to only equip the abbey richly. The Anglo-Norman duke-kings (Henri Ier Beauclerc, Geoffroy Plantagenêt, Etienne of Blois, Henri II Plantagenêt), the bishops and archbishops of the ecclesiastical province of Rouen, often confirmed the gifts of the laic ones. These gifts flowed slowly between the foundation and the beginning of the year 1140. They multiplied until the years 1180, moment to which they become fewer. These donations were the fact as well of large Norman lords as the their vassal ones or the simple laic ones.

The monks then became land great landowners, fields located especially in Cotentin, and which besides were stronghold of the lords of Néhou, descendants of Richard de Reviers. The goods of the abbey of Montebourg also extended in the Bessin, even in Upper Normandy, with Vernon, and in England, in the Devon and the Dorset.

These goods were was said, of the silver rights and in kind (of the bundles of corn, eggs, hens, etc).

Religious framing

The many givers also allowed the monks to found priories. And this especially in the years 1150, except for the English priory of Loders, founded since 1100-1107 by same the Richard de Reviers which had received the patronage of the abbey.

The creation of a priory Saint-Michel in the middle of the century with Vernon, seat high Norman of the family of Reviers-Vernon, made it possible to the monks of Montebourg to convey wine since the valley of the the Seine until Montebourg, via probably the port of Quinéville. Other priories were also founded: a Holy-Marie-Madeleine priory with Néville, in the north of Cotentin; with Néhou, the place of a community of secular canons created by Richard de Reviers about 1100-1107 and Midsummer's Day de Montrond, in the forest of Néhou. These priories were equipped in particular, but the monks serving them were monks of Montebourg.

Fairs and gone

The monks of Montebourg had the rights to levy the taxes (like the Tonlieu, habits, tolls) at the time of the fairs and the weekly market of Montebourg. These fairs were held on February 2nd (day of the Purification of the Vierge), on August 15th (day of the Assomption of the Vierge) and Thursday of the Ascension. The monks charged also the rights at the time of the fair of Montfarville and half of the rights at the time of the fair of the St. Lawrence to Tocqueville.

After XIIe century

The monastery of Montebourg developed considerably in XIIe century. The study of the inheritance and the political, economic history and nun of the abbey still remains to be made.

To XIIIe century, the Archevêque of Rouen Eudes Rigaud passed at the time of these pastoral voyages in all the ecclesiastical province: it come three times at Montebourg in 1250 first of all, it noted that thirty-seven monks lived there, receiving three hundred books of revenue per annum; May 27th, 1256 (6 of the calends of June), it counted thirty-two monks; finally in 1266, the abbey counted thirty-six monks.

In XIVe century, the abbot Pierre IV Ozenne makes rebuild the parish church Saint-Jacob, with his current site. Second half of the century is also that of the release of the Guerre One hundred Year old, which struck also the Cotentin, then passed under the domination of Charles de Navarre.

At the time of the French revolution, the abbey of Montebourg is sold as quite national of first origin to a private individual who starts to dismount the conventual buildings to take the stones of them. In 1818, the Norman scholar Charles de Gerville attends impotent the destruction of the last buildings, of which the church which had been built in XIIe century and had been dedicated in 1152 by the Archevêque of Rouen Hugues of Amiens

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