The Abbaye of the Holy Trinity de Tiron located on the commune of Thiron-Kept in the area of the Perche is a high place of spirituality from where twenty-two abbeys essaimèrent and more than one hundred of Prieuré S in France, in Scotland, in England and Ireland. This radiation was such as one spoke about Tiron.
The foundation of the monastery in 1109
The founder of the monastery of Tiron, Saint-Bernard de Ponthieu, born close to Abbeville (Somme) in 1046 (which one should not confuse with Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Cistercien which preached IIe Croisade), was initially Moine Bénédictin in the Poitou, prior of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, then abbot of Saint-Cyprien of Poitiers. Following long contentions with the monks of Cluny, he resigned his load and, with the permission of the Pape, lived as a hermit in lonelinesses of the Mayenne and the Brittany. He came then in the Perche, whose Count was Rotrou III the Large one. This prince offered initially Arcisses to him (commune of Brunelles), but the donation was revoked by the mother of Rotrou III, which defended the monks clunisiens of the abbey Saint-Denis de Nogent-le-Rotrou. Then Rotrou III gave him an uncultivated place in full forest, with little distance from the current borough of Thiron. It is there that Saint-Bernard built a primitive Monastère where it celebrated for the first time the mass the Easter Day 1109 , with the Yves bishop of Chartres. A vault dedicated to Holy-Anne, near to the pond of the same name, marks this site today. Difficulties being raised with the monks clunisiens of Saint-Denis de Nogent, saint-Bernard gave up his monastery of Holy-Anne and, with the authorization of the Saint-Yves bishop, came to fix himself on the parish of Kept, depend on the Chapter of Chartres, where currently Thiron (1114) rises.
Thanks to the gifts of the kings and larger lords of France, of England and even of Scotland, it started to build a new monastery. From this time, it does not remain that the church such that it currently exists. The lack of architectural ornamentation shows well the spirit of Saint-Bernard, more austere than that of the Règle of Saint Benoit which it took as a starting point. The disciples of Saint-Bernard differed moreover Benedictines by their dress gray smoked, with long hairs. They were devoted to the prayer and all kinds of manual work. It is with them that one owes the clearing and the setting in culture of the country, the creation of the pond of Thiron, that of Saint-Anne, that of the Aulnaie S, drained in 1842 and whose road of Thiron with Combres borrows the lifting.
Royal abbey
With died of Saint-Bernard, on April 26th 1116, the new abbey had become royal thereafter of the safeguard which the king of France Louis VI had granted to him the Large, which obliged it to receive like laic brothers of the former invalid soldiers. It had already the priories of Saint-Dogmaël, with the Wales, founded in 1113; of Stops-D' Sour (commune of Romilly-on-Sourness), founded in 1114, and of Yron, with Cloyes-on-the-Dormouse, founded in 1115.
-
the successors of holy Bernard were:
This last, which was a large lord and which a table represented with Chartres preceded by six clerks, the raised rod, made rebuild most of the monastery. In particular, a vast chapter parallel with the bedside of the church, in which it was buried. Its tomb stone, found in 1840, is currently set up with the bottom of the church and its stick is preserved at the museum of the fine arts of the town of Chartres.
-
the successors of Jean II of Chartres were:
It is under the reign of this abbot, on June 13rd 1428, that Thomas Montaigu, count de Salisbury, general-in-chief of the English troops, energy to put the seat in front of Orleans, held to ransom the abbey, set fire to it and took along all the cattle from there.
-
Guillaume Grimault (1431 - 1453), then his nephew Léonnet Grimault (1453 - 1498), repaired the abbey and built with their expenses the splendid Gothic chorus which remained until in 1817. By recognition, they were buried under a common tomb stone to the entry of this chorus which they had just made build, with the site of the current high altar. This double tomb stone, raised in 1817, is currently of pieces in the content of the church.
- In Grimault, succeeded Louis 1st of Bursting (1498 - 1501), then his/her cousin Louis II of Bursting (1501 - 1549), and finally Geoffroy II Laubier (1549 - 1550 or 1551). At that time, the abbey of Tiron counted thirteen suffragan abbeys, including five in England, and forty-nine priories in France.
An abbey in commende
As from this moment, the abbey of Tiron was given by the King of France in benefit to foreign characters to the congregation of Saint-Bernard, often even laic. The abbots commendataires perceived with their profit two thirds of the incomes and left the religious direction to a Prieur. The abbots commendataires were initially the Jean cardinal of Bellay (1551-1561) and Hippolyte d' Este, cardinal of Ferrare (1561-1563).
March 19th, 1562, 3000 German riders, with the pay of the Huguenot S, melted on the abbey, massacred three monks, profaned the church, broke the stained glasses and the statues and, during three days, plundered all, removing the objets d'art, furniture, linen, cattle and provisions for a value of more than six franc million.
Charles de Ronsard, brother of the poet (1563-1575), and Rene de Laubier (1575-1578), tried to restore the abbey, but the cardinal of Birague (1578-1582), and especially the poet Philippe Desportes (1582-1606), had of another concern only of empocher the incomes.
February 6th, 1591, a body of 500 Swiss, with the pay of Henri IV, - then only king of Navarre, - plundered the abbey while going of Beaumont to Chartres, so that the monastery was in the most lamentable state with the nomination of Henri II of Bumblebee. This one, wire naturalness of Henri IV and Henriette d' Entragues, rams of Vaupillon and marchioness of Verneuil, wanted to give of the order and to apply the ordinance of Charles IX flux a college to Tiron (1560).
Foundation of the college about 1630
For this, it probably called upon the Benedictines of the Congrégation of Saint-Maur, who settled in Tiron in 1629 and installed their first college there, in 1630. The buildings were initially very modest and an imposing project, drawn up by Dom Pinet in 1651, does not succeed. Later, probably at the time of the transformation of the college into military royal school, in 1776, the transepts were occulted and assigned to the chapter (northern transept) and cooks some, refectory and residences for pupils (southern transept). The Prior, who was at the same time principal, settled in the offices of officiality (current Presbytère), with the bottom of the church.
After the retirement of the duke of bumblebee, which resigned at 69 years to marry, Jean-Casimir Vasa, king de Pologne (1670-1672), and Philippe of Lorraine d' Harcourt (1672-1702) hardly dealt with the abbey nor of the college.
The Castel abbot of Saint-Pierre (1703-1743) made install woodworks and stalls for the presbytery where the pupils (current chorus) were held, thanks to a gift of the Duchess of Orleans, born Palatine princess, of which he was the chaplain. They were carved by Mauté, of Paris, and were posed in 1740 by Damour and Pradnel, of Paris, and Dufresne, of Nickel silver.
The fire of 1786 and end of the Abbey
The last two abbots commendataires were the abbots Malherbe (1743-1771) and of Vermont (1771-1782). Then the benefit of the abbey, which still represented an annual income of more than 50.000 francs, was attached to the cure of Saint-Louis of Versailles. Abbey of Tiron did not depend any more whereas one ten priories.
In the night from November 22nd to 23rd 1786, a fire was declared in the store with coal and destroyed the western wing of the abbey, consume more than 2000 volumes, as well as remarkable paintings and sculptures. The distributions were undertaken in 1788, but the contractor died the following year before to have completed them.
The abbey was closed in May 1791. All the good-for-nothings of the country seized lead, the iron and all the valuable articles which they could carry. The college remains until 1793, and with its disappearance the poor ones moved into the buildings.
The worship ceased in the church in July 1792. However dom Leguay still managed to say the mass in the vault of the Virgin on January 1st, 1793. December 5th of the same year, the abbey one was used as temple of the Reason, and the woman Debray, born Tasset, accepted the homages of the assistants, installed on a foam mountain recovering the high altar. Put under sequestration like national good, the abbey, its dependences and the garden of the college were allocated to the sior Etienne Taulé, former student, then professor of music to the college. The Descloseaux general, of Paris, acquired the college and his dependences, where the departmental administration had refused to create a central school of department, in spite of the request of the Municipal council drawn aside in 1796.
Clink demolishes what remained abbey to sell of them the materials, which were used for construction of many houses borough. The destruction was finally completed in 1810.
Descloseaux thought of continuing to exploit the college with the assistance of the former professors, as well monks as laic, who lived at the time of the closing and whose majority had remained in the country. But it was found died, the throat cut of a blow of razor, on November 2nd, 1797, in the Chevallier house, where it was descended. The college was then bought (1803) by the notary Bisson, former tax prosecutor of the monks, for the account of his/her Gallot brother-in-law. But Descloseaux had already alienated to rough-hew it, bakery and the storeroom, as well as the housing of the tailors and the servants charged with the farmyard.
In 1929, the abbey and its dependences belong to the family of Mondésir, which acquired them Clink. The college is the property of Mr. Guillaumin, relative by alliance of the Bisson notary.
In 1983, the abbey and its dependences belong to the family of Pontbriand. When with the college, it is the property of Mr. and Mrs. Victor Lombearde (since the month of July 2005, the old military college is property of the General advice of Eure&Loir).
In 1802, the western wing of the college crumbled and the gate of honor is demolished. The lead which recovered the vaults and the buttresses having disappeared during the Revolution, the low-vaults of the north of the church, then those of the south, crumbled in 1804 and 1805, involving the fall of the buttresses. The useless pillars were then sold, finally the chorus itself crumbled on February 10th, 1817.
The open opening then was stopped and the current high altar there was placed. At the same time as the doors which led to the cirery and with the bell-tower which were laid out on each side, the two furnace bridges placed at the entry of the presbytery were leant with the wall and as the remainders of woodworks served to make the bench-D' works. Two of the black marble columns which supported the vault high altar were embedded on each side of the beforehand stopped door of the cloister. The stalls of the monks, dating from XIIIe or XIVe century, mutilated and deprived of their file by the fall of the chorus, were laid out on each side of the nave, and the woodworks of XVIe sure century coming from the cirery kept in places.
In 1820, one placed behind the high altar the table of “the Worship of the Magi”, coming from the abbey of Arcisses, copies that existing in Tiron and which was the work of a large Master. The statue of the Virgin which decorated the vault of congregation of the pupils of the college, with the bedside of the church, and which had been hidden with the Revolution by Durand, gardener of the abbey, was replaced in the church in February 1816.
In 1867, the ex-voto offered to Sainte Genevieve by Prat, lord of Blainville, and which was with Saint-Etienne-of-Mount, in Paris, was brought to Tiron.
In 1893, were placed the modern statues representing saint-Bernard and Saint-Assistant, this last, lord of Vernon, knight of Ground-Holy, then monk of Tiron, finally prior of the monastery of Vernon, which it had given to the abbey of Tiron.
The monks of Tiron are still represented by the abbey of Caldey, in the island of the same name, in Wales. The Benedictines Anglicans who had settled there, being rejoined with Roman Catholicism in 1913, and having embraced the observance of Mount-Cassin, are currently in Prinknash Priory.
Since 1929, two other monastery about Tiron took again the monastic life: in 1977, the Carmelite nuns of Blois settled in the antique priory of Molineuf, commune of Saint-Secondin, in 1979, with the abbey of Saint-Michel-of-Wood-Aubry, the south of Turns, an orthodoxe community bénédictine started to raise of prestigious ruins.
Admittedly, today the Order of Tiron fell into the lapse of memory and it remains for witness, only the long Romance nave of the abbey church, the barn with said or the dependences. But its history everywhere and the gardens of the Park of the Abbey are marked presence of the Order. Through the kitchen garden of simple, aromatics, the alley of the limes, with the corner of the fish pond or on the terrace of the fruit-lofts, you will be filled with wonder by the landscape and its evolution. Charmed by the monastic silence which reigns, you will be astonished by abundance by flavors, forms and colors.
With each step, it is the history of an abbey which reappears of its own ground.
Sources
The essence of this text is taken again small work scholar, but not free from errors, of Andre Guillaumin, Thiron, its abbey, its military college , 1929, rééd. 1984.
It was renewed since:
-
Denis Guillemin, Thiron, medieval abbey , Friends of the Pole, 1999.
- Youri Carbonnier, " The abbey and the college of Tiron at the XVIIe century, state and projects at the beginning of the time mauriste" , Books Percherons , 1999-2, p. 1-18.
External bonds
-
Site of the town hall of Thiron-Kept
- Site of the canton of Thiron-Kept
----
| Random links: | Elena V. Kondakova | Atlantic LGV | Saint-Urcize | Alexandre Desplat | Milan Jelić |