Buzay Abbey, dedicated to Our Lady, was a Cistercian Abbey at

Rouans Rouans (; br, Rodent) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France. Population See also *Communes of the Loire-Atlantique department The following is a list of the 207 communes of the Loire-Atlantique department of ...

in Pays de la Loire,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, formerly in

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period ...

, founded in 1135 and dissolved in 1790.

History

Bernard of Clairvaux - Gutenburg - 13206

Bernard of Clairvaux Bernard of Clairvaux, O. Cist. ( la, Bernardus Claraevallensis; 109020 August 1153), venerated as Saint Bernard, was an abbot, mystic, co-founder of the Knights Templars, and a major leader in the reformation of the Benedictine Order throug ...

founded the abbey at Buzay in 1135, at the request of Ermengarde of Anjou, widow of

Alan IV, Duke of Brittany Alan IV (c. 1063 – 13 October 1119) was Duke of Brittany from 1072 until his abdication in 1112. He was also Count of Nantes (from c. 1103) and Count of Rennes. His parents were Duchess Hawise and Duke Hoel II. He is also known as Alan Fergant. ...

, and mother of

Conan III, Duke of Brittany Conan III, also known as Conan of Cornouaille and Conan the Fat ( br, Konan III a Vreizh, and ; c. 1093–1096 – September 17, 1148) was duke of Brittany, from 1112 to his death. He was the son of Alan IV, Duke of Brittany and Ermengarde of An ...

.Pierre-Hyacinthe Morice, ''Histoire ecclesiastique et civile de Bretagne'' (1756)
p. cxxxix
(in French) The next year, in 1136, the first community of a dozen monks settled on the site of the new abbey with Nivard, a younger brother of Bernard de Clairvaux, as their prior.Arlette Lebigre, “Les débuts de l’abbaye cistercienne de Buzay en pays de Rais, 1144-1250”, in ''Revue historique de droit français et étranger'', Issue 3, July–September 1967, pp. 451-482 (in French)
at infobretagne.com, accessed 27 April 2020 Bernard himself came for the dedication of the new foundation, accompanied by Geoffroy de Lèves, Bishop of Chartres, as they were travelling together on a visit to

Parthenay Parthenay () is an ancient fortified town and ''commune'' in the Deux-Sèvres department of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in western France. It is sited on a rocky spur that is surrounded on two sides by the River Thouet, and is the su ...

to meet

William X, Duke of Aquitaine William X ( Occitan: ''Guillém X''; 1099 – 9 April 1137), called the Saint, was Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, and Count of Poitou (as William VIII) from 1126 to 1137. Early life William was the son of William IX by his second wife, ...

. Around 1143, Bernard of Clairvaux came from Champagne to visit Buzay, but found its abbey in a state of great poverty and neglect. Conan III had not honoured his promises of support, and Bernard asked the monks to return to Clairvaux, but first he met Conan III, who admitted his fault and gave the monks everything he had denied them. They then decided to stay. The abbey became rich, thanks to the salt trade, commercial traffic on the river

Loire The Loire (, also ; ; oc, Léger, ; la, Liger) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône ...

, and many gifts of land and other property. In 1177, Robert II, bishop of Nantes, approved the addition of a

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglic ...

for

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

s. In 1180, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Nantes, a son of

Henry II of England Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle (french: link=no, Court-manteau), Henry FitzEmpress, or Henry Plantagenet, was King of England from 1154 until his death in 1189, and as such, was the first Angevin king ...

, Duke of Normandy, and of

Eleanor of Aquitaine Eleanor ( – 1 April 1204; french: Aliénor d'Aquitaine, ) was Queen of France from 1137 to 1152 as the wife of King Louis VII, Queen of England from 1154 to 1189 as the wife of King Henry II, and Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right from 1 ...

, assigned to the abbey in perpetuity twenty

livres The (; ; abbreviation: ₶.) was one of numerous currencies used in medieval France, and a unit of account (i.e., a monetary unit used in accounting) used in Early Modern France. The 1262 monetary reform established the as 20 , or 80.88 gr ...

to be paid by the mills of the surrounding parish.

With effect from 1474, commendatory abbots were appointed by the duke or king, replacing the regular abbots elected locally. During the

War in the Vendée The war in the Vendée (french: link=no, Guerre de Vendée) was a counter-revolution from 1793 to 1796 in the Vendée region of France during the French Revolution. The Vendée is a coastal region, located immediately south of the river Loir ...

(March – December 1793), following the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

, Buzay Abbey was destroyed by fire. What now remains of the buildings is a tower which had been rebuilt in the 18th century, and some vaulted cellars. Other survivals are the bells, which were transferred to

Chartres cathedral Chartres Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres (french: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres), is a Roman Catholic church in Chartres, France, about southwest of Paris, and is the seat of the Bishop of Chartres. Mostly con ...

, an Italian marble altar, which was moved to the church of Saint-Louis in Paimbœuf, a pulpit, now in the church of St Peter in

Bouguenais Bouguenais (; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Loire-Atlantique Departments of France, department in western France near Nantes. Bouguenais is home to the Nantes Atlantique Airport. Population Economy Régional, a regional airline, w ...

, and some other objects, including the oldest crucifix in the Pays de Retz, dating from the fourteenth century, in the chapel of St Anne of Tharon at

Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef (; br, Sant-Mikael-Keveger) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France. Population See also *Communes of the Loire-Atlantique department The following is a list of the 207 communes of the Loir ...

Daughter houses

From Buzay, three new Cistercian abbeys were instituted as daughter houses. On 1 July 1172, Buzay sent a few monks to the small Île du Pilier, north of

Noirmoutier Noirmoutier (also French: Île de Noirmoutier, ; br, Nervouster, ) is a tidal island off the Atlantic coast of France in the Vendée department (85). History Noirmoutier was the location of an early Viking raid in 799, when raiders attacked ...

. However, the small windswept island posed so many problems for the new community that in 1205 the monks fell back on the island of Noirmoutier and founded the abbey of Our Lady the White. On 25 March 1200, at the request of

Constance, Duchess of Brittany Constance ( Breton: ''Konstanza''; c. 1161c. 5 September 1201) was Duchess of Brittany from 1166 to her death in 1201Judith Everard, Michael Jones, ''The Charters of Duchess Constance of Brittany and her Family (1171-1221)'', The Boydell Press, ...

, monks were sent for the founding of her new Villeneuve Abbey, on land belonging to Buzay, located on the Ognon, a river flowing into the lake of Grand-Lieu, near the Châtellenie of Touffou and the village of Bignon. The monks would help to drain the surrounding marshes, with advice from engineers of the Poitevin marshes, and would also help to dig a canal between Messan and the Loire. In 1259, Buzay was prosperous enough to establish

Prières Abbey Prières Abbey (french: Abbaye de Prières or ''Notre-Dame de Prières''; la, Abbatia de Precibus) is a former Cistercian monastery in the commune of Billiers in the department of Morbihan, Brittany, France, about 28 kilometres southeast of Van ...

, at the request of John I, Duke of Brittany, and the Cistercian Order.

List of Abbots

Regular

* 1144 : Pierre I * 1150–1153 : Guillaume I * 1155 : Adam * 1170 : Pierre II * 1175 : Geoffroi * 1177 : Richard * 1187 : Menno * 1199 : Guillaume II Robert * 1203 : Gaultier * 1206 : Égide I * 1206 : Raoul * 1232 : Richard II * 1236 : Mathieu * 1237 : Barthélemy * 1244 : Égide II * 1268 : Robert * 1270 : Samson * 1276 : Daniel * 1310 : Henri I * 1317 : Jean I * 1325 : Jean II de Mez * 1359 : Henri II * 1377 : Louis * 1384 : Guillaume III Maréchal * 1417 : Jean III Gendron * 1453 : Pierre Villageys * 1454–1471 : Humbert Boulay

Commendatory

* 1474–1492 : Odet de la Rivière * 1492 : Pierre III Gigan * 1494–1512 : Jean IV Bohier * 1519 : Jean V * 1524–1543 : Louis Tissart * 1552 :

Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine Charles de Lorraine (c. 1525 – 26 December 1574), Duke of Chevreuse, was a French Cardinal, a member of the powerful House of Guise. He was known at first as the Cardinal of Guise, and then as the second Cardinal of Lorraine, after the death o ...

* 1564 : Henri III Clausse * 1576 : Pierre IV de Gondi * 1598–1622 : Henri IV Cardinal de Gondi * 1622–1654 : Jean VI François de Gondi * 1654–1675 :

Jean François Paul de Gondi Jean François Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz (20 September 1613 – 24 August 1679) was a French churchman, writer of memoirs, and agitator in the Fronde. The Florentine banking and noble Gondi family had been introduced into France by Cather ...

, Cardinal de Retz * 1675–1733 : Jean VII François Paul Lefebvre de Caumartin * 1733–1737 : Louis de Bourbon-Condé, Count of Clermont * 1737 : Pierre V Augustin Bernardin de Rosset de Fleury * 1789–1790 :

Jean Georges Lefranc de Pompignan Jean Georges Lefranc de Pompignan (22 February 1715 in Montauban – 29 December 1790 in Paris) was a French clergyman, younger brother of Jean-Jacques Lefranc, Marquis de Pompignan. Pompignan was the archbishop of Vienne against whose defense o ...

Ulysse Chevalier, ''Notice chronologico-historique sur les archevêques de Vienne'' (1879)
p. 18
“Jean VII Georges Le Franc de Pompignan, évêque du Puy, lui succéda... il se démit alors de son siége et reçut l'abbaye de Buzay; il mourut le 29 décembre 1790”

Notes

Links

at pornic.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Buzay Cistercian monasteries in France 1130s establishments in France 1790 disestablishments in France Former Christian monasteries in France Monuments historiques of Pays de la Loire Monasteries dissolved during the French Revolution Destroyed Christian monasteries